Thread - The OPCW IIT report is just out, as suspected it focuses on the March 24th, 25th, and 30th 2017 chlorine and Sarin attacks in Al-Lataminah. The report concludes Syrian government forces were responsible for all three attacks.
opcw.org/sites/default/…
opcw.org/sites/default/…
The report also confirms the use of M4000 bombs in the March 24th and March 30th attack. Bellingcat had previously identified the M4000 bomb as the type used in the March 30th attack based on careful examination of open source evidence bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019…
Unsurprisingly the IIT says the Syrian Arab Republic wasn't much of a help in the investigations.
This won't make anyone who makes these allegations happy anyway, but the IIT confirms it considered scenarios where the incidents were staged as part of its investigation.
The OPCW IIT lists scenarios it considered as part of the investigation, including "false flag" type scenarios.
The OPCW IIT also provides information on the general situation in the area at the time, including details of the military situation.
The section appears to refer to what @tobiaschneider was tweeting about earlier, so a very good spot by him (and a good follow on the topic of chemical weapons for you)
I won't post it all here, but the IIT has collected really great information about the military activity in the area, and specific units and where they were. I'm sure @tobiaschneider and @GPPi will appreciate these details greatly.
The Tiger Forces involvement in chemical attacks is something covered in depth in @gppi's Nowhere to Hide report on chemical weapon use in Syria, and is again relevant here gppi.net/2019/02/17/the…
Aircraft spotters, who work as an early warning network in Syria and document air activity, appear to have provide important information to the OPCW IIT.
There's some very specific details here about the preparations for the Sarin attacks that took place in Al-Lataminah, and no doubt the April 4th attack in Khan Sheikhoun. Clear evidence these attacks were preplanned.
This is some of the most detailed work I've seen about the specific locations chemical weapons and barrel bombs were stored by the Syrian government's forces.
The IIT looked into various allegations about groups transporting chemical weapons in the context of the Al Lataminah attacks, but....
..despite requests they didn't receive information from the accusers to back up those claims. Guessing they couldn't find enough conspiracy theories on the internet to steal because their usual CW truther sources didn't hear about the attacks.
Onto the March 24th incident, one of the most interesting ones for me because there's no open source documentation of it. The OPCW IIT report states Sarin was used in the incident.
The OPCW IIT report uses flight data that shows a Syrian SU22 departed from Shayrat airbase on the morning of March 24th, just before the attack occurred. This is the same airbase the Khan Sheikhoun attack was launched from on April 4th.
The symptoms of the victims are consistent with Sarin exposure. Also interesting to note some victims were in a cave, as there's an underground base near the impact site, as seen in this tweet
Nearly a year after the attack the OPCW IIT received debris from the March 24th 2017 impact site. This debris was consistent with Syrian chemical bombs.
These bombs should have been destroyed by Syria, but they claimed some were repurposed as conventional bombs, but we now know that was a lie. One question this reports raises is what that means for Syria and it's membership of the CWC.
The OPCW IIT report contains great details on the loading of the Syrian M4000 chemical bomb, consistent with other reporting on the topic, covered by Bellingcat in its series of articles on the M4000 bomb bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019…
The OPCW IIT addresses the chain of custody of the debris, including video footage of the collection of the debris.
This is how the OPCW IIT confirms it was an M4000 chemical bomb used in the March 24th attack. They also mention an M4000 was used in the March 30th attack, but we'll come to that.
A second fragment was also examined, but as they couldn't establish chain of custody the OPCW IIT decided not to "pursue this second fragment in this area of inquiry."
More fragments in video footage of the March 24th crater were examined, further confirming the bomb used was a Syrian M4000 chemical bomb.
On to the chemistry of the March 24th Sarin attack. The OPCW IIT states the chemical profile of the Sarin used strongly correlates with the profile expected of Syria's Sarin, just like the Sarin used in the April 4th Khan Sheikhoun attack.
This leads the OPCW IIT to a straight forward conclusion, a Syrian government jet flying from a Syrian government airbase dropped a Syrian government bomb filled with Syrian government Sarin.
Skipping ahead to the March 30th incident, the OPCW IIT notes there was information of not only a Sarin attack, but chlorine attacks on that day. However, those March 30th chlorine attacks are not subject of the OPCW IIT report.
Unlike the March 24th 2017 Sarin attack in Al-Lataminah, there was some open source material on the attack on March 30th, which Bellingcat wrote about in October 2017 bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017…
The description of the attack in the OPCW reports are consistent with those gathered during Bellingcat's investigation, as per our earlier report on the OPCW FFM investigation on the March 30th attack bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017…
The OPCW IIT report refers to a video they obtained showing an airstrike at 6am on March 30th. They don't provide many details, but we found this video from March 30th, which may be the same video they refer to.
Again, aircraft spotting networks play a role in tracking the aircraft that attacked Al-Lataminah. "Quds 1" was the code name used by an aircraft that is believed to have bombed Khan Sheikhoun with Sarin on April 4th 2017 bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017…
As we noted in our reports on Khan Sheikhoun, the aircraft spotter who recorded the movements of Quds 1 on April 4th mentioned it had been involved in previous chemical attacks. Now we know it's March 30th in Al Lataminah. bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017…
The casualty figures reported by various sources on the March 30th attack varied significantly, including claims of up to 169 injured by chemical weapons. The chlorine attack that reportedly took place later that day may account for some of these higher numbers.
During Bellingcat's October 2017 investigation into the March 30th attack we acquired footage showing some of the victims suffering the effects of Sarin exposure bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017…
Unlike the March 24th attack in Al Lataminah and the April 4th attack in Khan Sheikhoun, a significant amount of bomb debris was recovered, again identified by the OPCW IIT as a M4000 chemical bomb.
Thanks to the OPCW-FFM report on Al Lataminah and the @mod_russia, Bellingcat previously identified the bomb used on March 30th 2017 as an M4000 chemical bomb. The OPCW IIT report confirms this earlier finding.
bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017…
bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017…
The OPCW IIT report also confirms our theory at Bellingcat that this particular piece of debris documented in the OPCW FFM report wasn't from the M4000, and it's in fact from a cluster bomb undocs.org/S/2017/931
It's worth noting that the filling caps recovered from the site of the March 30th (left) attack are an identical design to the filling cap documented at the site of the Khan Sheikhoun attack (right), making it likely an M4000 bomb was used there as well
As a side note it took us nearly two years to find a video of an M4000 chemical bomb, and its good to see our investigation into the identity of the bomb confirmed by the OPCW IIIT investigation bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019…
An important note here, as the filling caps and mixing arm remnants recovered trapped Sarin inside their parts, it was considered extremely unlikely they could have been interfered with to add the chemicals detected. Not good news for chemical weapon Truthers.
Here's the part referred to in the above tweet, from the OPCW FFM report on the March 30th attack undocs.org/S/2017/931
During our investigation of the type of bomb used on March 30th we worked with @ForensicArchi, who created a model of the M4000 based on the @mod_russia's diagram and reconstructed the debris, comparing it to the M4000 bombs measurements. It fit perfectly. bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019…
As with the March 24th attack in Al-Lataminah and April 4th attack in Khan Sheikhoun, the Sarin matches the type made by the Syrian Arab Republic.
So, again, a Syrian government plane, flying from a Syrian government airbase, dropped a Syrian government chemical bomb, filled with Syrian government Sarin.
Before I dive into the Annexes, a look at the March 25th chlorine attack, in which a cave hospital was hit by chlorine barrel bombs. According to the OPCW IIT, four of these bombs were dropped in the incident.
Bellingcat investigated this incident in October 2017. There was some confusion about the exact number of munitions used and when they were dropped, so we focused on one that hit the hospital entrance bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017…
Footage from the aftermath of the attack shows the chlorine cylinder that penetrated the room of the entrance of the hospital, forcing staff and patients to flee
The OPCW IIT states 3 people died and at least 32 were injured, including a doctor operating on a patient in the hospital. His story was told by Dr. Basel Termanini, Vice-President of @sams_usa
Unsurprisingly, the description of the chlorine bombs used in the attack matches the type of chlorines bombs used in the Douma attack in April 2018, and many other chlorine attacks in Syria.
Based on the evidence the OPCW IIT concludes chlorine was used as a chemical weapon, dropped by a helicopter of the Syrian Arab Air Force.
Onto the factual findings section of the report. It again revisits some of the key pieces of evidence that are extremely hard to explain away as being planted, like the Sarin found in the filling caps and mixing arm assembly in the March 30th debris.
The Sarin identified in these incidents, matching the type identified at Khan Sheikhoun, is strongly connected to the Syrian governments Sarin manufacturing process.
The Syrian government themselves have repeatedly stated they've not lost control of their chemical weapons stockpile, so it doesn't leave them many explanations to how their Sarin and chemical bombs ended up dropped on Al Lataminah and Khan Sheikhoun.
The OPCW IIT also highlights the absurdity of the false flag scenarios that no doubt will be presented by the usual suspects.
They rightly point out that in the case of the March 24th attack it would have required intricate staging, which is at odds at the total lack of publicity around the attack. That really doesn't fit with the chemical weapons truthers false flag theories.
With the March 30th attack they would have even had to been careful enough to add a lubricant to the mixing system, which suggests a near omnipotent amount of foresight. The false flag scenarios the CW truthers will no doubt cling don't even start to add.
To summarise, the attacks were clearly the responsibility of the Syrian Arab Republic, and those attacks, and Khan Sheikhoun, were part of a coordinated and planned campaign.
That's pretty much from me, unfortunately there's not many images for me to examine, so you're spared an hour of that at least. There's a very good thread here from the former head of the OPCW laboratory of the chemistry side of the attacks
