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Do Syrian Rebels Have Sarin?

Do Syrian Rebels Have Sarin?


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DaveFagan

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[url]http://consortiumnews.com/2013/09/15/do-syrian-rebels-have-sarin/[/URL][B

] Do Syrian Rebels Have Sarin?

"The [/B]four-page white paper, issued on Aug. 30, danced around the question of whether the rebels possess CW by focusing only on whether the rebels were responsible for the attack. “We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely,” the white paper said. “Our intelligence sources in the Damascus area did not detect any indications in the days prior to the attack that opposition affiliates were planning to use chemical weapons.”

"The likely explanation is that U.S. intelligence agencies have indications that at least some rebel groups possess CW and may have used it in the past. That is a view that was expressed last May by Carla Del Ponte, a senior United Nations official responsible for Syrian investigations.
Del Ponte told a Swiss-Italian TV station, “Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report … which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated.”
Del Ponte added, “This was used on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.”

" Former Defense Department official F. Michael Maloof wrote on Sept. 11 for the right-wing World Net Daily’s web site that WND had obtained a classified U.S. document in which “the U.S. military confirms that sarin was confiscated earlier this year from members of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, the most influential of the rebel Islamists fighting in Syria.”
Though Maloof has a checkered reputation for accuracy – having been part of President George W. Bush’s propaganda campaign for invading Iraq – he cites specific information from what he describes as a document classified “Secret/Noforn” produced by the U.S. intelligence community’s National Ground Intelligence Center, or NGIC."

"Other on-scene reports have raised doubts about the certainty of the U.S. “Government Assessment” blaming the Syrian government. For instance, an article by MintPress News – based on interviews with people in Damascus and Ghouta – presented evidence that “the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit. …
“[F]rom numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, … many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the … gas attack.”
The article also cited comments by rebel-connected Ghouta residents indicating that the release of the poison gas may have resulted from a conventional artillery strike by government forces accidentally hitting a rebel storage site for chemical weapons or from careless rebel handling of the dangerous material."

Why doesn't the USA gov't acknowledge this?

Are we supporting the bad guys?

Why is an attempt being made to "frame" the News so that if CW was used it is automatically implying Syrian gov't guilt?

Has the USA gone too far?

Should the UN also confiscate rebel Sarin gas?
 
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Given the amount of unrest in the ME in the past decade, I'd be surprised if they didn't have chemical / biological weapons at their disposal.
 
Do they have chem. weapons of some sort, probably.
Did they were the ones that used it in the latest attack, don't know.

Fallen.
 
This is why there should not have been a rush to the "red line". We dont know.
Now...we DID know the REBELS used chemical weapons in March. That red line violation never popped up on our radar. Why? Because team Obama doesnt give a **** about chemical weapon use, they only care if they can pin it on Assad. They also ignored the reports from Turkey showing they had also captured rebels in possession of Sarin.
 
I don't know if they do. And there is no official institution that has the resources to investigate this claim that has investigated this claim.
 
Heya DF.....yeah even Salon for the Progressives had it up when Reuters stated they had a Report casts doubt on the US Intel. It was back on May 6 2013.


Are the Syrian rebels the ones using chemical weapons?
A new Reuters report casts doubt on U.S. military intelligence.....

So, wait. It wasn’t the Syrian regime, but rather the Syrian rebels who used sarin nerve gas recently? That’s the story being reported tonight by Reuters, from actually named sources among U.N. investigators. But will anybody notice? Or, with Israeli airstrikes already under way, and the neo-cons already demanding another new war, is the news too little, too late…again?

Hagel’s statement was somewhat measured [emphasis added]: “Our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin.”

Syrian rebels, McCain ominously warned on CNN, need to be given “a safe zone, we need to supply them with weapons going to the right people, and we need to be prepared to secure these caches of chemical weapons in the event that [Syrian leader Bashar al Assad] uses them.”

But what of those “game changing” chemical weapons? Lo and behold, a report out tonight, based on information from U.N. investigators, seems to indicate that it’s the Syrian rebels — the one that McCain et al are calling for Obama to support immediately — who may have used the sarin nerve gas which kicked off this entire sequence of events.....snip~

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/06/are_the_syrian_rebels_actually_using_chemical_weapons_partner/
 
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This is why there should not have been a rush to the "red line". We dont know.
Now...we DID know the REBELS used chemical weapons in March. That red line violation never popped up on our radar. Why? Because team Obama doesnt give a **** about chemical weapon use, they only care if they can pin it on Assad. They also ignored the reports from Turkey showing they had also captured rebels in possession of Sarin.

Not only that VM.....the FSA had some Col back in early 2012 that had defected. He had stated that Assad had Facilities that h could not protect and that the Rebels could take them from him.

Then to top it off Idris reported to Pan Arab Television and to the Sauds. That after Assad was overthrown. Which Idris thought it would only take 6 months. That was back in June of this year. They would take control of the Chems.

Syrian army rebels will secure chemical weapons following Assad’s fall: report

Once the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad collapses, the Syrian opposition plans to take control of the regime’s chemical weapons depots and secure them, an Israeli daily reported citing a top opposition figure.

The daily Haaretz quoted an opposition leader, who was a former senior officer in the Syrian Army -- on conditions of anonymity -- as saying that they have committees dealing with a new constitution and post-Assad elections, justice and the restoration of security that will follow the fall of Assad’s regime.

He added that the large arsenal of chemical weapons held by the regime “is one of the matters the security committee has discussed.”

“We have divided the aftermath into four periods with different priorities for each day. The first period is the first day, the first hours after Assad’s control breaks down, and one of the priorities during those hours is taking control of the chemical weapons so they won’t fall into the hands of terrorists,” the former officer – now a top member of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) -- was quoted by Haaretz as saying.

He said that the FSA knows the locations of the chemical weapon stores. “We will be ready to move and secure them quickly. I can’t promise that nothing will be removed, but we have our information and it is not so simple to move around chemical weapons.” The chemical weapons bases are controlled by the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, he said.....snip~

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/29/217186.html
 
Not only that VM.....the FSA had some Col back in early 2012 that had defected. He had stated that Assad had Facilities that h could not protect and that the Rebels could take them from him.

Then to top it off Idris reported to Pan Arab Television and to the Sauds. That after Assad was overthrown. Which Idris thought it would only take 6 months. That was back in June of this year. They would take control of the Chems.

Syrian army rebels will secure chemical weapons following Assad’s fall: report

Once the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad collapses, the Syrian opposition plans to take control of the regime’s chemical weapons depots and secure them, an Israeli daily reported citing a top opposition figure.

The daily Haaretz quoted an opposition leader, who was a former senior officer in the Syrian Army -- on conditions of anonymity -- as saying that they have committees dealing with a new constitution and post-Assad elections, justice and the restoration of security that will follow the fall of Assad’s regime.

He added that the large arsenal of chemical weapons held by the regime “is one of the matters the security committee has discussed.”

“We have divided the aftermath into four periods with different priorities for each day. The first period is the first day, the first hours after Assad’s control breaks down, and one of the priorities during those hours is taking control of the chemical weapons so they won’t fall into the hands of terrorists,” the former officer – now a top member of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) -- was quoted by Haaretz as saying.

He said that the FSA knows the locations of the chemical weapon stores. “We will be ready to move and secure them quickly. I can’t promise that nothing will be removed, but we have our information and it is not so simple to move around chemical weapons.” The chemical weapons bases are controlled by the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, he said.....snip~

Syrian army rebels will secure chemical weapons following Assad


Something in the USA foreign policy implementation is completely out of whack.. The underlying agenda behind all of this needs to be laid bare to the public. It has to be about money and OIL and the Military/industrial/Corporate complex or Israel. There is no real logic or moral high ground in any perspective as regards our activities with Syria.
 
Something in the USA foreign policy implementation is completely out of whack.. The underlying agenda behind all of this needs to be laid bare to the public. It has to be about money and OIL and the Military/industrial/Corporate complex or Israel. There is no real logic or moral high ground in any perspective as regards our activities with Syria.

Heya DF.....have you been checking out what I have been getting up on Syria? Here is what the Peace Institute who works with the State Dept had to say.

In the past, United States officials saw the Islamist groups’ abundant resources as the main draw for recruits, said Steven Heydemann, a senior adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, which works with the State Department.

The strategy is based on the current assessment that popular appeal of these groups is transactional, not ideological, and that opportunities exist to peel people away by providing alternative support and resources,” he said.

Mr. Heydemann acknowledged, however, that the current momentum toward radicalism could be hard to reverse......snip~

http://www.debatepolitics.com/middle-east/171776-honor-syrian-rebels-w-90-a-9.html

Check it out.....we even have the names of All that's part of the FSA and SNC. Their backers, who their support is coming from. Who is really behind them. Plus some of what has been taking place with them.

Not to mention that part on Syria splitting up into 3 regions. With Al Nusra and AQ holding most of the North.
 
Consortium News? Its very liberal and they have no special investigators in Syria.
 
Something in the USA foreign policy implementation is completely out of whack.. The underlying agenda behind all of this needs to be laid bare to the public. It has to be about money and OIL and the Military/industrial/Corporate complex or Israel. There is no real logic or moral high ground in any perspective as regards our activities with Syria.

Syria has very little oil.. about 400 thousand barrels per day.. It hardly meets their needs.
 
Consortium News? Its very liberal and they have no special investigators in Syria.

Were you going to try and state the UN didn't send Carla Del Ponte inside Syria to investigate? Trying to go after a source that is referenced and validated by all the MS media, kinda seems redundant now.....doesn't it?
 
Syrian chemical programme – National executive summary of declassified
intelligence - Paris, 3 September 2013

Our intelligence confirms that the regime feared a wider attack from the opposition on Damascus at that moment. Our assessment is that the regime was trying by this attack to loosen the grip and to secure sites strategic to control of the capital. For example, the area of Moadamiyé is located close to the Mezzeh military airfield, which houses the barracks of the Air Force intelligence. Anyhow it is clear, by examining the targets of the attack, than only the regime itself could have targeted positions that were so strategic for the opposition. Finally, we consider that the Syrian opposition does not have the capacity to lead an operation of that size with chemical agents. No group belonging to the Syrian opposition has, at this stage, the capacity to stock and use these agents, and even more in proportions comparable to what was used on the night of August, 21 in Damascus. These groups have neither the experience, nor the know-how to implement them, particularly through vectors as those that were used during the August 21 attack.

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/IMG/pdf/Syrian_Chemical_Programme.pdf
 
Syrian chemical programme – National executive summary of declassified
intelligence - Paris, 3 September 2013

Our intelligence confirms that the regime feared a wider attack from the opposition on Damascus at that moment. Our assessment is that the regime was trying by this attack to loosen the grip and to secure sites strategic to control of the capital. For example, the area of Moadamiyé is located close to the Mezzeh military airfield, which houses the barracks of the Air Force intelligence. Anyhow it is clear, by examining the targets of the attack, than only the regime itself could have targeted positions that were so strategic for the opposition. Finally, we consider that the Syrian opposition does not have the capacity to lead an operation of that size with chemical agents. No group belonging to the Syrian opposition has, at this stage, the capacity to stock and use these agents, and even more in proportions comparable to what was used on the night of August, 21 in Damascus. These groups have neither the experience, nor the know-how to implement them, particularly through vectors as those that were used during the August 21 attack.

http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/IMG/pdf/Syrian_Chemical_Programme.pdf

Heya TT. :2wave: So that's the French Intel's Assessment eh? Whats your thoughts on that?
 
Considering the sophistication of the delivery system employed for the attack, rebel forces would not have been able to carry it out so successfully other than in the form of random acts of terrorism similar to the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. The Syrian Army’s 4th Armoured Division, controlled by Assad's younger brother Maher al-Assad, is most likely to be responsible for the chemical weapons attack and the Syrian opposition would not have attacked its own strategic positions.

330mm_chemrocket_diagram_2.jpg


Syria: Government Likely Culprit in Chemical Attack | Human Rights Watch
 
Considering the sophistication of the delivery system employed for the attack, rebel forces would not have been able to carry it out so successfully other than in the form of random acts of terrorism similar to the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. The Syrian Army’s 4th Armoured Division, controlled by Assad's younger brother Maher al-Assad, is most likely to be responsible for the chemical weapons attack and the Syrian opposition would not have attacked its own strategic positions.

330mm_chemrocket_diagram_2.jpg


Syria: Government Likely Culprit in Chemical Attack | Human Rights Watch

Thank you for the supporting evidence.

I am astounded by some of the conspiratorial, willful ignorance of the people on this forum that insist to themselves, despite all logic and evidence, that the rebels caused the attack.
 
Considering the sophistication of the delivery system employed for the attack, rebel forces would not have been able to carry it out so successfully other than in the form of random acts of terrorism similar to the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. The Syrian Army’s 4th Armoured Division, controlled by Assad's younger brother Maher al-Assad, is most likely to be responsible for the chemical weapons attack and the Syrian opposition would not have attacked its own strategic positions.

330mm_chemrocket_diagram_2.jpg


Syria: Government Likely Culprit in Chemical Attack | Human Rights Watch

This is supposed to be the picture of one missile. Photo number 3, starting from left and counting to right, shows the missile impacted in dirt and photo number 6 is supposed to be the same missile, but they are different. The damage and out of round configuration would show in photo number 3 if they were the same missile. Something doesn't pass the smell test.
 
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