industryterm:alleged chemical attack

  • ‘How do they sleep?’ Roger Waters calls out US, UK & France over ‘faked’ Douma chemical attack — RT World News
    https://www.rt.com/news/459638-roger-waters-douma-opcw

    Citing newly leaked OPCW documents casting doubt on the April 2018 ‘chemical attack’ that triggered a bombing of Syria, rock star Roger Waters is calling out everyone who believed in the ‘murderous fairytale’ of the White Helmets.

    US, UK and France launched air strikes against Syria in April last year, after an alleged chemical attack in the city of Douma, northeast of Damascus. The claims came from the White Helmets, a self-styled ‘civil defense’ organization backed by Western governments and embedded with the Islamist militants in Syria.

    “The White Helmets probably murdered 34 women and children to dress the scene that sorry day in Douma,” Waters posted on his Facebook page on Thursday, next to a video of his April 2018 concert in Barcelona in which he challenged the group as “a fake organization that exists only to create propaganda for the jihadists and terrorists.”

    Waters added he hopes that those in the media and the governments in Paris, London and Washington that bought into the White Helmets’ “callous and murderous fairytale are suitably haunted by the indelible images of those lost innocent Syrian lives.”

    Internal OPCW documents leaked earlier this week cast doubt on the organization’s final report about the Douma incident, which claimed chlorine was ‘likely’ used against civilians. Syrian and Russian soldiers that liberated the town from militants found chlorine containers and a laboratory for producing chemical weapons. Moscow has suggested that the OPCW hedged its report because it did not want to contradict the US narrative.

    #syrie #propagande

    • Intéressant : Brian Whitaker a publié un assez gros point sur cette « fuite ». Leaked document revives controversy over Syria chemical attacks
      https://al-bab.com/blog/2019/05/leaked-document-revives-controversy-over-syria-chemical-attacks

      A leaked document which contradicts key findings of an official investigation into chemical weapons in Syria has surfaced on the internet. Described as an “engineering assessment” and marked “draft for internal review”, it appears to have been written by an employee of the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) — the international body charged with the investigation.

      In April 2018 dozens of people were reportedly killed by a chemical attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, and western powers responded with airstrikes directed against the Assad regime.

      In March this year, after a lengthy investigation, the OPCW issued a report which found “reasonable grounds” for believing a toxic chemical had been used as a weapon in Douma and suggested the chemical involved was chlorine gas, delivered by cylinders dropped from the air.

      Although the investigators’ brief did not allow them to apportion blame, use of air-dropped cylinders implied the regime was responsible, since rebel fighters in Syria had no aircraft.

      The 15-page leaked document takes the opposite view and says it is more likely that the two cylinders in question had been “manually placed” in the spot where they were found, rather than being dropped from the air. The implication of this is that Syrian rebels had planted them to create the false appearance of a chemical attack by the regime.

      Whitaker, sur ce sujet, s’est régulièrement illustré par une dénonciation virulente de ce qu’il appelle les « truthers » sur la Syrie. Encore très récemment :
      https://medium.com/@Brian_Whit/how-a-yellow-cylinder-became-a-propaganda-weapon-in-syria-cc696a0bb0d9

    • Après, personnellement, le fait de conclure directement à l’analyse opposée (« les casques blancs ont fait le coup ») sur la foi d’un seul rapport minoritaire non retenu dans le rapport final, ça me semble excessivement prématuré.

  • ‘Whole story was staged’ : Germany’s ZDF reporter says Douma incident was false flag attack — RT World News
    https://www.rt.com/news/424832-douma-attack-german-media

    The alleged chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma was staged by local militants, who tried to frame it as a Syrian Army strike, a German TV correspondent, who travelled to Damascus, has said publicly, citing local witnesses.

    “People told us in a very convincing manner that this whole story was staged,” Uli Gack, a reporter with the German ZDF public broadcaster, said (referring to the alleged Douma chemical attack) while he spoke live on ZDF Heute (‘Today’) show on Satuday.

    Gack had travelled to Syria and visited one of the refugee camps near Damascus, where “some 20,000 people from Eastern Ghouta and particularly from Douma” were living.

    Maintenant que même des journalistes « sérieux » confirment qu’il s’agissait bien d’une mise en scène, on fait quoi ?

    #syrie

  • Syria ’chemical attack’ : OPCW Douma visit ’delayed by security issue’ - BBC News
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43792120

    Experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons appear to have delayed their visit to the site of an alleged chemical attack in Syria.

    The fact-finding team were expected to travel from Damascus to the nearby town of Douma on Wednesday.

    But a Western official in the capital said a UN security team had faced a “security issue” there on Tuesday.

    Les experts détachés à Douma se font tirer dessus. Certainement encore un coup de Bachar et des Russes qui veulent effacer les traces de leurs mauvais coups !...

    #syrie

  • Alleged Mosul phosphorus attack ‘smoke screen’ to protect civilians : Army
    http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/750ba96d-69ae-4175-91bb-71f5682bc044

    ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The Iraqi army on Sunday denied using white phosphorus while shelling Islamic State (IS) positions in western Mosul.

    In a statement, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command in Mosul rejected reports of the use of white phosphorus by Iraqi and coalition warplanes in Mosul.

    The report stated the alleged chemical attack was an “intentional smoke screen to protect civilian lives.”

    The statement said some news and social media sites published inaccurate reports on the use of phosphorus during the military operations against IS in Mosul.

    On June 3, several civilians were fleeing IS-held areas toward the Iraqi security forces near Jimhuri hospital in western Mosul, and there was the danger of being targeted by IS snipers, the statement added.

    “We relied on the international coalition to launch smoke screen attacks to hide the movement of the civilians from the IS extremists’ line of sight,” the report continued.

    “[We wanted] to give the civilians a chance to flee toward the Iraqi forces,” the statement informed, stating the forces “succeeded in rescuing the civilians and protecting their lives.”

    The Iraqi command explained that such smoke screen attacks were previously used in several areas in eastern and western Mosul for the purpose of protecting civilians from enemy fire.

    Iraqi air forces on Saturday heavily shelled IS insurgents in the al-Zinjili neighborhood located in western Mosul.

    While Kurdistan24 was streaming live from the region, Iraqi forces repeatedly struck the militant group’s positions in the area.

    The shelling seen in the footage shows white smoke rising from air raids.

    #Irak images #EI de bombardements au phosphore blanc du centre hospitalier #Mossoul ouest datées d’aujourd’hui
    https://twitter.com/SimNasr/status/871295988023136256

  • L’édito d’Al-Amine est particulièrement intéressant : Syria Crisis : New Global Balance in the Making
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syria-crisis-new-global-balance-making

    But both the Iranians and the Russians realized that in order to stop Obama from carrying out his attack and convince him to move in the direction of a political solution, they had to find a compromise that would be acceptable to all sides.

    In doing so, they were met halfway by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, who were working on a separate track to achieve the following:

    First, to prevent any spoilers – such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France, and Israel – from influencing the UN weapons inspectors’ report on the alleged chemical attack in Damascus. And second, to get Geneva II back on track, especially after Brahimi received encouragement from a number of leaders at the G20 meeting in that direction.