Middle East Thread: Clarissa Explains the Fall

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Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

https://twitter.com/SimaDiab/status/927921007536504832

# ¿ Nov 7, 2017 16:35

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 02:19

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Although no-one appears to give a poo poo anymore, the OPCW-FFM just released a report detailing the use of Sarin in an incident a week before the April 4th Khan Sheikhoun attack. Unusually they included lots of photos of debris recovered from the site, some of which indicates the same bomb was used in Khan Sheikhoun and this earlier attack, and the Sarin used has one of the chemical markers that the OPCW-UN JIM stated was an indication the Sarin was Syrian government produced. I wrote a bunch of poo poo about it here

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/11/09/fresh-evidence-sarin-use-syrian-government-forces-opcw/

# ¿ Nov 9, 2017 16:57

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Digging through the new OPCW reports on Sarin use in Syria turned up something interesting. They state the presence of one chemical, PF6, aka HFP, aka I'm not writing out it's full name, is a chemical marker linking it to Assad's stockpiles, and indicates a sophisticated, industrial, production process. Turns out HFP was also detected in samples from the August 21st 2013 Sarin attacks in Damascus. Russia and Syria both claimed homemade/kitchen Sarin was used (as did Seymour Hersh), but this shows they were lying. Russia also said the Sarin used on August 21st was the same type used in Khan al-Assal, so it looks more and more likely the Syrian government also were responsible for Khan al-Assal:
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/men...-sarin-attacks/

# ¿ Nov 11, 2017 17:12

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Here's the images the Russian MoD claim they really meant to share:

https://twitter.com/mod_russia/status/930472894454517760

https://twitter.com/SovietSergey/status/930474709640253440
https://twitter.com/gametreeapp/status/930473312832184322
https://twitter.com/JimmyRushmore/status/930481994080931840

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 19:41

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

lollontee posted:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42020959

So what does this actually mean? Russia can't actually shut down the investigative committee with this, can it? Or is this just more political theater?

It means the OPCW-UN JIM won't be renewed, so there's no UN approved mechanism to investigate chemical incidents that the OPCW FFM confirms happened. The FFM can only say an incident occurred, not who did it, it's up to the OPCW-UN JIM to do that. The last chemical incident the OPCW-FFM published about was a March 30th 2017 Sarin attack that predated the April 4th Khan Sheikhoun attack, but was pretty much ignored in the media. It's probably why they did it again on April 4th. The OPCW FFM found the same chemical markers the OPCW-UN JIM found at Khan Sheikhoun which they used to link the Sarin used in that at to the Syrian government, and the remains of the same bomb were found at both sites, and the remains matches a type of Syrian chemical bomb. So it's pretty obvious the JIM would blame Syria for that incident, meaning Russia has a clear motivation for preventing them from continuing their work.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2017 11:44

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Volkerball posted:

I don't understand how they managed to do this work in the first place. Since before Ghouta and long after, Russia successfully prevented the UN for blaming the regime or Russia for anything directly. It was always just a call on both sides to resume negotiations and come to terms on a ceasefire. Do you think something has changed in the last year or two? Maybe the UN convoy bombing fundamentally changed the relationship between UN agencies and Russia? Carla Del Ponte's resignation? Or maybe Russia just hosed up and didn't veto something they probably wish they did in hindsight? Idk, it's really weird.

The OPCW-UN JIM has actually blamed the Syrian government for previous chemical attacks, a number of the chlorine attacks in 2014, I just think people give less shits about chlorine, and Sarin use is harder to ignore. Another major change in the last two years is Russia is directly involved with combat, so any body investigating war crimes in Syria is more of a threat to Russia now.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2017 18:01

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

A good piece here looking at what happens next with accountability around Syrian chemical weapon use (not much for now):
http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2017/11/20/russia-has-finished-un-s-syria-chemical-attack-probe-what-now

# ¿ Nov 20, 2017 22:16

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Looks like it's him, moles and blemishes match to earlier photos.
https://twitter.com/Conflicts/status/937661475245756416

# ¿ Dec 4, 2017 13:41

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Sinteres posted:

There aren't really enough Shia to create an Afghan Hezbollah. They're just too outnumbered.

I'm not going to say targeting civilian infrastructure is good, but crying "how dare they attack an airport!?" after all the infrastructure the Saudis have bombed in Yemen is such bullshit.

https://twitter.com/stcolumbia/status/941485663794401280

There's a whole photo and video set here:
https://www.dvidshub.net/feature/iranianviolations

Of course, none of these objects were shown in the locations they were originally recovered from, so their value as evidence is actually much less than they would want them to be.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2017 07:49

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

The KRSC is getting worried about the movements of Iraqi forces, claiming they're preparing for an attack to capture territory

https://twitter.com/KRSCPress/status/943438816706224128

# ¿ Dec 20, 2017 12:32

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Herstory Begins Now posted:

Yeah the next generation's Brown Moses is going to be documenting drone atrocities. As someone who follows drone tech, if the Syrian conflict was just starting now, we'd see 100 times more drones in it. As it stands, the last two years saw a complete explosion of drone use by every side in the conflict. poo poo, there're drone videos of every major battle of the last couple years. It's amazing how fast drones achieved saturation in the conflict, though it makes perfect sense that real time info on enemy movements would be prioritized like that.

One of my volunteers is already making hobbyist style drones used by armed groups his thing, he's written a number of articles about how they are being used, and it currently looking into the latest claims about the attacks on Russia's airbase in Syria. Here's a few of his pieces:

Death From Above: The Drone Bombs of the Caliphate
Types of Islamic State Drone Bombs and Where to Find Them
Iraqi Federal Police Using Weaponised Drones

I'm just waiting for some nutter to fly a drone carrying containers filled with drain cleaner or a flammable substance over a crowded musical festival and drop it on the attendees.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2018 20:22

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Herstory Begins Now posted:

What are his thoughts so far on the Russian airbase attack? Obviously who the gently caress knows, but there's really zero reason to discard the possibility of a drone attack out of hand. If it is drones, then who did it becomes the really interesting question. The US has the ability to do something like that (and is almost certainly itching for the chance to field test it and while it would be a big aggression, it's insanely deniable on a lot of levels, especially considering that 99% of people have no idea how far weaponized drone tech is). Given current leadership, if Russians bombed some American interest-aligned group or hit some SOF guys, that attack could almost definitely get authorized.

One thing that's interesting to me is they appear to be using cheap DIY drones, likely made to be disposable, such as the one pictured here:

https://twitter.com/JosephHDempsey/status/950429242390704129

Another example is seen here:

https://twitter.com/IvanSidorenko1/status/949851984533782534

It looks like with these they're going for a disposable drone with more munitions, unlike the drones used elsewhere, which are DJI type drones with just a few munitions. I'm not sure if these have cameras on them as well.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots made an interesting Black Mirrorish video about micro combat drones that they put out late last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw

# ¿ Jan 9, 2018 11:18

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

One of my team did a piece on the drone attack on Russia's air base
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/01/12/the_poor_mans_airforce/

Interesting things to note is the munitions appear not to fit the types used elsewhere by drones in Syria, and there's been a few attacks using the same drones in a fairly wide area.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2018 12:48

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Turkish state media is really doubling down on the "fake images shared on social media" theme, seen a few things like this in the last 24 hours, obviously ignoring all the genuine images:
https://twitter.com/trtworld/status/955485235155648513

# ¿ Jan 22, 2018 22:52

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

It's just been noticed that Strava has released a heat map for activity of its apps, allowing people to see where their apps are being used. One *tiny* problem is it appears soldiers from across the world have been using their apps, and it's possible to use it to find things like military bases and apparent patrol routes across the world:

https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/957318498102865920

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/957333917119508481

# ¿ Jan 27, 2018 22:49

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

This is a good thread with lots of examples from across the world:
https://twitter.com/arawnsley/status/957356785442152448

# ¿ Jan 27, 2018 22:59

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Interesting news on chemical weapon use in Syria:

quote:

Exclusive: Tests link Syrian government stockpile to largest sarin attack - sources

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Syrian government�s chemical weapons stockpile has been linked for the first time by laboratory tests to the largest sarin nerve agent attack of the civil war, diplomats and scientists told Reuters, supporting Western claims that government forces under President Bashar al-Assad were behind the atrocity. Laboratories working for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons compared samples taken by a U.N. mission in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta after the Aug. 21, 2013 attack, when hundreds of civilians died of sarin gas poisoning, to chemicals handed over by Damascus for destruction in 2014.

The tests found �markers� in samples taken at Ghouta and at the sites of two other nerve agent attacks, in the towns of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib governorate on April 4, 2017 and Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, in March 2013, two people involved in the process said.

�We compared Khan Sheikhoun, Khan al-Assal, Ghouta,� said one source who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the findings. �There were signatures in all three of them that matched.�

The same test results were the basis for a report by the OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism in October which said the Syrian government was responsible for the Khan Sheikhoun attack, which killed dozens.

The findings on Ghouta, whose details were confirmed to Reuters by two separate diplomatic sources, were not released in the October report to the U.N. Security Council because they were not part of the team�s mandate.

They will nonetheless bolster claims by the United States, Britain and other Western powers that Assad�s government still possesses and uses banned munitions in violation of several Security Council resolutions and the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The OPCW declined to comment. Syria has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons in the conflict now in its seventh year and has blamed the chemical attacks in the rebel-held territory of Ghouta on the insurgents themselves.

Russia has also denied that Syrian government forces have carried out chemical attacks and has questioned the reliability of the OCPW inquiries. Officials in Moscow have said the rebels staged the attacks to discredit the Assad government and whip up international condemnation.

Under a U.S.-Russian deal after the Ghouta attack in 2013, Damascus joined the OPCW and agreed to permanently eliminate its chemical weapons programme, including destroying a 1,300-tonne stockpile of industrial precursors that has now been linked to the Ghouta attack.

But inspectors have found proof of an ongoing chemical weapons program in Syria, including the systematic use of chlorine barrel bombs and sarin, which they say was ordered at the highest levels of government.

The sarin attack on Khan Sheikhoun in April last year prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to order a missile strike against the Shayrat air base, from which the Syrian operation is said to have been launched.

Diplomatic and scientific sources said efforts by Syria and Russia to discredit the U.N.-OPCW tests establishing a connection to Ghouta have so far come up with nothing.

Russia�s blocking of resolutions at the Security Council seeking accountability for war crimes in Syria gained new relevance when Russia stationed its aircraft at Shayrat in 2015.

Washington fired missiles at Shayrat in April 2017, saying the Syrian air force used it to stage the Khan Sheikhoun sarin attack on April 4 a few days earlier, killing more than 80 people.

No Russian military assets are believed to have been hit, but Moscow warned at the time it could have serious consequences.

In June, the Pentagon said it had seen what appeared to be preparations for another chemical attack at the same airfield, prompting Russia to say it would respond proportionately if Washington took pre-emptive measures against Syrian forces there.

�SERIOUS LAB WORK�

The chemical tests were carried out at the request of the U.N.-OPCW inquiry, which was searching for potential links between the stockpile and samples from Khan Sheikhoun. The analysis results raised the possibility that they would provide a link to other sarin attacks, the source said.

Two compounds in the Ghouta sample matched those also found in Khan Sheikhoun, one formed from sarin and the stabiliser hexamine and another specific fluorophosphate that appears during sarin production, the tests showed.

�Like in all science, it should be repeated a couple of times, but it was serious matching and serious laboratory work,� the source said.

Independent experts, however, said the findings are the strongest scientific evidence to date that the Syrian government was behind Ghouta, the deadliest chemical weapons attack since the Halabja massacres of 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war.

�A match of samples from the 2013 Ghouta attacks to tests of chemicals in the Syrian stockpile is the equivalent of DNA evidence: definitive proof,� said Amy Smithson, a U.S. nonproliferation expert.

The hexamine finding �is a particularly significant match,� Smithson said, because it is a chemical identified as a unique hallmark of the Syrian military�s process to make sarin.

�This match adds to the mountain of physical evidence that points conclusively, without a shadow of doubt, to the Syrian government,� she said.

NO CHANCE REBELS BEHIND GHOUTA
Smithson and other sources familiar with the matter said it would have been virtually impossible for the rebels to carry out a coordinated, large-scale strike with poisonous munitions, even if they had been able to steal the chemicals from the government�s stockpile.

�I don�t think there is a cat in hell�s chance that rebels or Islamic State were responsible for the Aug. 21 Ghouta attack,� said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, an independent specialist in biological and chemical weapons.

The U.N.-OPCW inquiry, which was disbanded in November after being blocked by Syria�s ally Russia at the U.N. Security Council, also found that Islamic State had used the less toxic blistering agent sulphur mustard gas on a small scale in Syria.

The Ghouta attack, by comparison, was textbook chemical warfare, Smithson and de Bretton-Gordon said, perfectly executed by forces trained to handle sarin, a toxin which is more difficult to use because it must be mixed just before delivery.

Surface-to-surface rockets delivered hundreds of litres of sarin in perfect weather conditions that made them as lethal as possible: low temperatures and wind in the early hours of the morning, when the gas would remain concentrated and kill sleeping victims, many of them children.

Pre-attack air raids with conventional bombs shattered windows and doors and drove people into shelters where the heavy poison seeped down into underground hiding places. Aerial bombing afterwards sought to destroy the evidence.

The large quantity of chemicals used, along with radar images of rocket traces showing they originated from Syrian Brigade positions, are further proof that the rebels could not have carried out the Ghouta attack, the experts said.

I actually noted the chemical connection between Khan Sheikhoun and the August 21st 2013 attacks back in November. and there's also the same connection to the March 30 2017 attack in Al-Lataminah, as well as the same bomb remains being recovered from that and the April 4th Khan Sheikhoun attack. Regarding Khan al-Assal, the Russian government created a dossier it presented to the UN which it claimed showed rebels were responsible, including naming the specific DIY rocket used by a specific rebel unit. I wrote about that back in 2014, and noted the many issues with their claims, and the above report confirms it was bullshit all along. So that's 4 Sarin attacks linked to the Syrian government's chemical weapons stockpiles, and looking at other information I've gathered there's likely at least 3 more.

Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Jan 30, 2018

# ¿ Jan 30, 2018 10:16

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

After today's chlorine attack in Douma, the third in 2018, I've been getting calls from US journalists telling me they were briefed by the Trump admin who were claiming Assad is developing new chemical weapons and there's an open source report of Sarin being used after their bombing of Shayrat airbase. Sounds like their building a case to bomb Syria for chemical weapon use again.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2018 20:21

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

HorrificExistence posted:

that's a mistranslation.

The video is awful though, the woman is blown up (missing a lot more than that tweet implies) a guy kicks her and someone else off screen tells him to stop.

It does look more like a horrific battlefield injury than how people have been describing it on Twitter (soldiers stripping her body and mutilating it).
[edit] This is doing the rounds now

https://twitter.com/AlSuraEnglish/status/959186474993422338

Seeing Trump is probably going to bomb Syria over it, I've done a write up on today's chlorine attack in Douma

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/02/01/third-time-year-chlorine-used-chemical-weapon-douma-damascus/

We've been working on the Jan 22 attack with another group for the last 7, and we've loads of images of the munitions used, so we'll be publishing a big report on that soon, with extra info on the Feb 1 attack too.

Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Feb 1, 2018

# ¿ Feb 1, 2018 22:54

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

guidoanselmi posted:

Stupid wonky question: is there a nose cone on the other side of the rocket? The cylinder doesn't seem...ballistically efficiency.

There's a curved front end with a pressure valve in the middle, used to fill it:

# ¿ Feb 1, 2018 23:45

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Footage from the ground:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7G92t2MXBY

Mixed reports of the pilot being captured/executed/killed in the crash.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2018 16:52

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Someone is sending a poo poo load of ATGMs to Kurdish forces:

https://twitter.com/QalaatAlMudiq/status/960125679294713857

That's bad news for Turkish forces, if there's one thing we've learnt in Syria, it's ATGMs are the greatest equaliser.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2018 13:43

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/960518332502900736

# ¿ Feb 5, 2018 15:21

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Among the carnage in Idlib since the Russian jet was shot down, Kafr Nabl Surgical Hospital was hit by an airstrike, and it was a rare occasions where a direct hit on a hospital was caught on camera:

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/960525741690630144

# ¿ Feb 5, 2018 15:50

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

There's masses of videos showing their convoy today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNTCDdQK-mM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCxOqcoNCk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3Zgk32Ega8

# ¿ Feb 5, 2018 18:24

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Volkerball posted:

Hillel Neuer is with UN watch. The link is irrelevant. I'm pretty sure BM/bellingcat are the ones who dug it up. He's tweeted a photo of it.

Edit: Either Bild found it and then added on some statements from BM, or BM found it and Bild ran the story.

We found it originally, then shared it with Bild after the company didn't respond to my emails asking for a comment. We collected a bunch of extra images of the rockets used from locals and published them here:
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/02/05/images-january-22nd-2018-chlorine-attack-douma-damascus/

# ¿ Feb 7, 2018 09:45

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

It still amazes me how low these people will go in their attempts to show children are complicit in faking chemical attacks, among other things

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/961511442481664000

# ¿ Feb 8, 2018 09:49

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

One of the newest tricks in open source investigation, lining up bloodstains from mass executions to satellite imagery:

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/960979000733716480
https://twitter.com/iBRABO_com/status/955880592993935360

# ¿ Feb 8, 2018 11:28

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Video from the hospital which pro-Turkish types are using to claim it's a fake attack

https://twitter.com/Malikejder47/status/964645637580115968

Turkey demands evidence

https://twitter.com/RudawEnglish/status/964800610792067074

The symptoms seem pretty mild, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was a crowd control agent.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2018 10:59

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

https://twitter.com/p_zalewski/status/965511535182393345
https://twitter.com/THE_47th/status/965511976645529600

Some people are having complicated and conflicted feelings this morning.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2018 10:05

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

There's a video doing the rounds, reportedly from Ghouta, of a young kid who has survived having the front of his/her face being pretty much destroyed, I'd recommend you skip.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2018 18:12

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

I just spent the morning looking for videos from Ghouta from yesterday, here's a playlist of them if anyone wants to watch them all.

Couple of kids getting pulled out of the same collapsed building in these ones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8c3e3Yn2Yo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2EvTE5LrI4

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 12:14

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

There's also reports of a chlorine attack in Ghouta, on al-Shefonya.

https://twitter.com/MhdKatoub/status/967817877243027458

Video from the hospital here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vzolYe75_g

# ¿ Feb 25, 2018 20:23

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

CBS 60 Minutes had a good piece on the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack last night:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-a-chemical-attack-in-syria-looks-like/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7d&linkId=48516322

The head of the OPCW-UN JIM which investigated the attack was interview, and he stated that the Sarin was from the Syrian government stockpiles, and couldn't be recreated:
https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/collecting-evidence-of-a-war-crime/

This is particularly interesting as the Syrian government has denied losing control of it's CW, and Reuters recently reported the OPCW said the Sarin used in Khan Sheikhoun also matched the Sarin used in Khan al-Assal on March 19th 2013, and the August 21st 2013 Sarin attacks.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 10:58

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

The new UN Commission of Inquiry report on Syria is out. Lots of details on the systematic targeting of schools, hospitals and markets by pro-government forces, and this on the US coalition killing 150 civilians it still claims were 30 ISIS guys, even after they investigated it:

quote:

On the night of 20 to 21 March 2017, at approximately 11 p.m., United States-led coalition forces carried out an airstrike against Al-Badiya school in Mansurah (Raqqah), an area that was under ISIL control at the time. The Commission initially reported on that incident in July 201710 and its findings are detailed in annex IV below (paras. 7�11). The Commission conducted 20 interviews with survivors, relatives of victims, rescuers, village residents and individuals on site after the airstrike and concluded that the school had been housing internally displaced families since 2012. Of more than 200 residents in the school, 150 were killed. The Commission identified 12 survivors, several of whom had sustained serious injuries, including severe burns and loss of limbs. Among the survivors there were four women and six children, the youngest of who was a 10-month-old baby.

During a briefing of journalists on 28 March 2017, the Combined Joint Task Force established by the international coalition took responsibility for the strike, claiming that it had targeted 30 ISIL fighters whom it claimed were using the school. The Task Force stated that it could not corroborate that the school was used by internally displaced persons.

Information gathered by the Commission does not support the claim that 30 ISIL fighters were in the school at the time of the strike, nor that the school was otherwise being used by ISIL. Rather, the status of casualties and the nature of the Al-Badiya building is widely divergent from the international coalition�s assessment. Information that residents of the school were internally displaced families, including a large number of women and children, and that the school had been used to shelter internally displaced persons since 2012 should have been readily available to the coalition�s targeting team. The Commission therefore concludes that the international coalition should have known the nature of the target and failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects, in violation of international humanitarian law. The subsequent investigation conducted by the international coalition should have been able to identify the high number of civilian casualties resulting from this incident.

It's not the first time a US coalition investigation has found a dramatically different version of events than other investigations. Bellingcat, HRW, and Forensic Architecture worked together to investigate the Al Jinah mosque bombing, which the US claimed initially was an Al Qaeda meeting location, but which we found was full of civilians with not a scrap of information indicating Al Qaeda was there. Forensic Architecture made this awesome video about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc3UaxLqEWw

The US claimed at first it wasn't a mosque, then changed their claim after we published our reports, but still claimed it was full of civilians. They didn't publish a report, but gave a press conference, which fortunately AirWars transcribed. Here it becomes clear why their investigations aren't terribly reliable:

quote:

Q: Well just on that one point, so did you speak to anybody who was actually on the ground. You said you spoke to dozens of people. How do you � how would you characterize those people?

GEN. BONTRAGER: Right. So we did not � we did not speak with any � anyone on the ground in Syria except for the � the individuals in the unit that conducted the strike. We simply didn�t have access to � to anyone in the location of the strike. So � so the answer to that is a simple no. We spoke to dozens of people throughout the process � the approval process, the strike cell, as well as � as anyone who had any � any information with regard to the � the intelligence available or the � or what else was available.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2018 13:44

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Volkerball posted:

https://twitter.com/THE_47th/status/971613347467669505?s=19

Rifai is not loving around today.

I was looking at pro-Assad Twitter over the last few days (for research purposes, so help me), and I think the reporting around Ghouta has broken their brains even more than usual, especially with the way in which they're trying to debunk as many White Helmets videos as possible with (intentional or not) misinterpretation of images and reports. It reminds me a lot of the behaviour of MH17 Truthers at their worst, where it seemed like everyday they had a new photo or video that proved Ukraine shot down MH17 with a SU-25, and it always turned out to be some out of context, misunderstood, or purposefully incorrect image. It gets to a point where their position becomes more about faith than facts, so they get increasingly agitated at moments like these.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2018 11:05

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Volkerball posted:

I noticed it after that newsweek article that took that Mattis quote out of context. A handful came back and said "ok, Mattis didn't actually say the regime had never used sarin, but." Most just continued to pretend that he did. It was one of the more egregious examples showing it isn't skepticism and diligence that exists in their articles, but outright misinformation and a desire to hide the truth. Ever since it's like they don't even care if they're proven to be liars. Their audience obviously isn't bothered by it.

So much so that the Syrian delegate to the UNSC cited the Newsweek article:

quote:

"One of the most important political magazines, the American Newsweek, published an article on 8 February written by Ian Wilkie entitled �Now Mattis Admits There Was No Evidence Assad Used Poison Gas on His People�. The United States Secretary of Defence admits in that article that there is no proof of the use of toxic gas by the Syrian Government against it people, neither in Khan Shaykhun nor in Al-Ghouta in 2013"

And did Newsweek retract the piece once the error was established? Nope, they gave Ian Wilkie another piece, where even he edged away from his previous claim in the same publication:

quote:

Secretary of Defense James Mattis made it very clear recently that �aid groups and others� had provided the U.S. with evidence that was insufficient to conclude that President Bashar Assad had recently used the chemical weapon Sarin against Syrian civilians.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2018 16:48

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Seems the pro-Assad tankies have fallen out which each other, with one group producing a lengthy video attacking Vanessa Beeley and friends, and now they're all calling each other conspiracy theorist. This is what happens when you treat politics like a religion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOio1baDxd4

# ¿ Mar 24, 2018 09:31

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Yeah, they're leaking each others DMs again
https://twitter.com/sibeledmonds/status/976619095050289152

The whole video is full of fun stuff, turns out Tim Anderson, their Australian professor friend, was acquitted of a terrorist plot back in the late 70s.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2018 09:44

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 02:19

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Volkerball posted:

https://twitter.com/OGHARIT/status/981837811102908417?s=19

Some of the Syrians I work with on various projects are on this list, along with family members. It seems to represent anyone in the Syrian community abroad who has been critical of the government. None of the people I know on the list have been involved in violence in anyway, just documenting war crimes. It also means these people can't realistically return to Syria while Assad's government remains in charge, so that's 1.5 million Syrians who won't be able to return home.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2018 07:20

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Middle East Thread: Clarissa Explains the Fall

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