Thread by @aronlund

Contrary to what Syrian and Russian state media claimed yesterday, OPCW has not been able to enter Douma to investigate alleged gas attacks. Syrian authorities approved a visit, but when UN security officers did a test run, they were fired upon and bombed. opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW…

According to a report in Enab Baladi, a pro-opposition newspaper that cited local sources in Douma, two car bombs exploded at the site of the reported chemical attacks yesterday. enabbaladi.net/archives/221848

When Trump gave orders to fire, intel analysts felt sure chlorine had been used in Douma, but were uncertain about sarin, reports @barbarastarrcnn. Seems broadly consistent with official rhetoric, but some claims leaked to media were more bullish on sarin. edition.cnn.com/2018/04/17/pol…

What is a chemical weapon? When is chlorine a chemical weapon? Chemical weapons expert @JPZanders explains. the-trench.org/what-is-a-cw

Missile Strikes Are Unlikely to Stop Syria’s Chemical Attacks, Pentagon Says – @Tmgneff. nytimes.com/2018/04/19/wor…

Lavrov says the Russian military and the Pentagon discussed areas and targets in Syria before the U.S. air strikes took place, and Russian red lines were respected. He also coyly notes that Russia no longer feels obligated to stop an S-300 deal with Syria. sputniknews.com/russia/2018042…

U.S. State Department claims to have "credible information and intelligence" showing that the Russian and Syrian governments are sanitizing and removing evidence from chemical attack sites in Douma, while OPCW inspectors remain unable to visit the city. state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2…

OPCW Fact Finding Mission finally got into (and out of) Douma, Syria. opcw.org/news/article/o…

Swedish UN Ambassador Olof Skoog says the Security Council meeting in Backåkra, Sweden, led to progress on the Syrian chemical arms issue, which will hopefully translate into something back in New York. Sounds optimistic—but we'll see, I guess. In Swedish: sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.a…

What clues are OPCW inspectors looking for in Syria? Chemical arms experts tell Simon Valmary that while you can clean up the traces of a chlorine or sarin attack, you're then likely to leave new traces showing that the place was cleaned up. Good article: yahoo.com/news/clues-mig…

Public database of available open source evidence on 212 reported chemical attacks in Syria, from @syrian_archive. syrianarchive.org/en/collections…

UN chief: Syria must respond to chemical weapons questions - by @EdithLedererAP. apnews.com/fa0f16acdd6b46…

New report by @SN4HR blames Assad's forces for chemical attack in Douma. sn4hr.org/wp-content/pdf…

OPCW Fact Finding Mission report concludes chlorine was likely used in Saraqeb on Feb. 4, 2018. The cylinders investigated seem very similar to those alleged to have been used as gas bombs in Douma.
• Full report: opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW…
• Media summary: opcw.org/news/article/o…

Syria may not have declared entire chemical arsenal, OPCW says. nbcnews.com/news/world/syr… by @lauraasaravia & @BrinleyBruton

OPCW concludes that both sarin and chlorine gas were used in Latamneh last year, on March 24 and 25. These incidents appear to be closely related to the nearby Khan Sheikhoun sarin attack that the UN-OPCW JIM has already attributed to the Syrian air force. opcw.org/news/article/o…

Two new texts on Syrian gas warfare by @EliotHiggins. First, on OPCW's recent Latamneh report: bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018… Second, on delivery mechanisms identified 2013–18, incl. specialized binary sarin munitions, custom-built rockets, and improvised bombs: bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018…

Why would Assad use chemical weapons? Because they are effective and the Syrian government calculates that any potential retaliation—sanctions or air strikes—will be sporadic, limited, and ultimately bearable, write @aaronstein1 and @luke_j_obrien. warontherocks.com/2018/06/the-mi…

.@SIPRIorg's John Hart looks at the OPCW's sensitive balancing of demands for accountability and its own capacity to serve as a neutral platform, as the organization heads into another potentially damaging tussle over Syria and the Skripal case on June 26. warontherocks.com/2018/06/confro…

New York Times investigation of the alleged chemical attack on April 7 in Douma, Syria, on which the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission is about to file a report. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Crazy procedural battles at the OPCW conference today, where Russia and Iran are working to block a UK proposal that would let the OPCW investigate and publicly disclose the identity of chemical attack perpetrators
Docs: opcw.org/documents-repo…
Live video: youtube.com/watch?v=_2lrq8…

Skripal's revenge: OPCW members vote 82-24 for a British proposal ordering OPCW to investigate and publicly identify perpetrators of all chemical attacks, including those in Syria not already investigated by JIM (which is defunct due to Russia's UN veto). opcw.org/news/article/c…

OPCW also formally establishes that Syria still illegally retains a chemical weapons arsenal after faking full compliance during the 2013-14 disarmament operation, in breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention and UN Security Council resolutions. Full text: opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW…

OPCW will also being sharing information with the UN General Assembly's IIIM investigation, which collects, verifies, and systematizes evidence that can then be used in international and national war crimes prosecutions, as well as with other UN bodies (likely incl. @UNCoISyria).

Although the Skripal incident seems to have accelerated things by making the UK want to kick Moscow in the nuts, most of this can be traced to the Russian triple veto (Oct. 24, Nov. 16, Nov. 17) to shut down the JIM investigation. I wrote about that here: irinnews.org/analysis/2017/…

OPCW report on two alleged rebel gas attacks reported by Damascus and Moscow in 2016. In the end, neither OPCW, Syrian government, or Russian testing found any trace of CW, but OPCW says an irritating agent—like a riot control gas—could have been involved. opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW…

OPCW interim report on the Douma incident:
opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW…
• Chlorine-related traces found at alleged bomb sites, but no nerve agent.
• Dismisses alleged CW labs reported by Damascus.
• Investigation continues, no decision yet on whether this was or wasn't a CW attack.

Meandering, fascinating piece on war and propaganda by @James__Harkin, who went to Syria to investigate the alleged gas attack in Douma and the conspiracy theories swirling around it—ended up investigating not just the incident, but the investigators, too. theintercept.com/2019/02/09/dou…

OPCW Fact-Finding Team issues final report on the April 7, 2018, Douma incident and concludes that there are "reasonable grounds" to assume it was a chlorine gas attack. As I understand it, a separate investigation will look at the issue of who did it. opcw.org/sites/default/…

OPCW says both gas tubes, pimped with fins for use as air bombs, landed on roofs with enough velocity to smash through concrete. Unless one thinks SAA helicopters flew around dropping empty gas bombs and someone else released the gas, I'd say that narrows the range of suspects.

.@Brian_Whit on an internal note—it's linked inside—by an OPCW employee (?) that offers a dissenting view on Douma. Seems genuinely leaked from within OPCW, but with curious gaps in the, uh, chain of custody. OPCW not helping itself by failing to clarify. al-bab.com/blog/2019/05/l…

"Informed source" tells @Brian_Whit Henderson's draft was excluded from the FFM report since it came too close to breaching mandate by naming perpetrators. (Odd, since mention of air drop remained.) Will still be used by IIT, which looks at responsibility. medium.com/@Brian_Whit/le…

More by @Brian_Whit on OPCW and Douma:
• Damascus refuses to let OPCW-IIT investigate in Syria: al-bab.com/blog/2019/05/s…
• Russia responds to OPCW-FFM's Douma report: al-bab.com/blog/2019/05/r…
• Douma report: opcw.org/sites/default/…
• Russian response: opcw.org/sites/default/…

Response by the OPCW Technical Secretariat to the questions about the OPCW-FFM's Douma report that were raised by Moscow (linked in previous tweet) and Damascus (not published, as far as I can tell, but extensively quoted in the OPCW note). opcw.org/sites/default/…

OPCW chief Fernando Arias addresses the Henderson leak and says the full scope of dialog with Damascus is frozen since May, when Meqdad said Syria refuses to recognize the OPCW conference's decision to identify perpetrators and will ban inspectors' entry. opcw.org/sites/default/…

Åke Sellström warns that tasking OPCW with attribution & a confrontative approach to Syria will come at the expense of other tasks & may damage OPCW's standing by reinforcing perceptions of a Western bias. sipri.org/sites/default/… (via @gregkoblentz, who, I gather, does not agree)

@gregkoblentz Una Becker-Jakob on the OPCW's handling of Syria, arguing that EU nations and other CWC parties should try the UN General Assembly route when pushing for accountability. sipri.org/publications/2…

@gregkoblentz Interesting new pieces of the Syrian chemical weapons puzzle dug up by @EliotHiggins, modeling the munition used in Khan Sheikhoun and Latamneh and linking it to the OPCW's "missing bombs" of 2013-2014, but also finding at least one case of repurposing. bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019…

@gregkoblentz @EliotHiggins Also, Ted Postol apparently came close to being published on Khan Sheikhoun in a peer-reviewed journal. His ever-mutating theory on why Assad can't be guilty has now moved from a ground explosion to saying no sarin was used at all. sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/s… @kakape v @gregkoblentz

@gregkoblentz @EliotHiggins @kakape José Bustani, the OPCW's first director-general—ousted under U.S. pressure in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2002—attacks the investigation of the 2018 incident in Douma, Syria. wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/doc… wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/doc…

.@Brian_Whit on José Bustani's Douma critique and his co-panelists. al-bab.com/blog/2019/10/f…

@Brian_Whit OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias says the organization's new IIT team, which has been tasked with identifying perpetrators of chemical attacks, will file its first report "in the next few months." webtv.un.org/watch/fernando… opcw.org/media-centre/n…

@Brian_Whit UN General Assembly voted 147–7 for a resolution that, among other things, condemns SAA & IS gas attacks "in the strongest possible terms" and "expresses grave concern" about Damascus's failure to fully, verifiably rid itself of CW. un.org/press/en/2019/… undocs.org/en/A/C.1/74/L.…

@Brian_Whit Anonymous person who was reportedly part of the OPCW's Douma investigation says his findings were distorted in public reports, in an interview with @steelejourno. counterpunch.org/2019/11/15/the…

@Brian_Whit @steelejourno Detailed look at the back and forth over OPCW's investigation into the Douma 2018 incident, by @Brian_Whit. al-bab.com/blog/2019/11/w…

@Brian_Whit @steelejourno Russia threatens to block the OPCW's 2020 budget, potentially shutting down the entire organization, if that budget includes funding for the investigative team tasked with identifying who is responsible for gas attacks in Syria. france24.com/en/20191125-sh…

@Brian_Whit @steelejourno Wikileaks keeps strategically re-actualizing its Douma material—a full version of a previously cited 2018 email was released Nov 23, timed for OPCW's Nov 25 CSP. wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/doc… OPCW tells @anotherdeutsch it is genuine, but stands by past reports. euronews.com/2019/11/25/che…

@Brian_Whit @steelejourno @anotherdeutsch Emails And Reading Comprehension: OPCW Douma Coverage Misses Crucial Facts – @bellingcat. bellingcat.com/news/2019/11/2…

The OPCW's 2020 budget has been adopted, with a crushing 106 votes. A Russian-led 19-country minority was trying to defund the organization rather than allow it to publicly identify chemical attack perpetrators. dailysabah.com/syrian-crisis/… by @AFPJanHennop

@AFPJanHennop Wikileaks has released another batch of ostensible OPCW documents dealing with the 2018 Douma incident. wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/#OP…

@AFPJanHennop Wikileaks releases some more OPCW documents. Once again with the same faux-sloppy removal of email addresses, to help you piece together the full names of all involved. Probably a question of time until it's dramatized as an online sleuthing breakthrough? wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/#OP…

@AFPJanHennop .@Brian_Whit parses the next-to-last batch of Wikileaks-published OPCW documents. al-bab.com/blog/2019/12/l…

@AFPJanHennop @Brian_Whit New by @Brian_Whit, who has somehow managed to transform a baffling mass of micro-details into a surprisingly readable chronology of the internal back and forth that preceded the leak of OPCW's Douma material. al-bab.com/blog/2020/01/d…

@AFPJanHennop @Brian_Whit Four articles on Syria's chemical attacks.
On Douma/OCPW by @Brian_Whit:
(1) al-bab.com/blog/2020/01/d…
…and @bellingcat:
(2) bellingcat.com/news/mena/2020…
(3) bellingcat.com/news/mena/2020…
…and by Brian Whitaker again, on the chemical weapons issue more generally:
(4) al-bab.com/blog/2020/01/f…

@AFPJanHennop @Brian_Whit @bellingcat Video of a Russian-convened "Arria formula" meeting of UN Security Council members, including a video statement by former OPCW inspector Ian Henderson, who criticizes the Douma findings (after 40.30). youtube.com/watch?v=edmaIZ… On Arria formula meetings: securitycouncilreport.org/un-security-co…

@AFPJanHennop @Brian_Whit @bellingcat .@Brian_Whit on Russia's Arria meeting on Syrian chemical weapons. al-bab.com/blog/2020/01/r…

@AFPJanHennop @Brian_Whit @bellingcat Russian OPCW rep. Alexander Shulgin's presentation at the Security Council's Arria meeting, laying out Moscow's most recent argument for why the Douma incident was faked. netherlands.mid.ru/en_GB/web/neth…

Same topic, but different: @bellingcat argues that while it is easy to call Douma a "false flag" and leave it at that, to successfully stage an event like that would require a lot of risky and leak-prone preparations and an unrealistic amount of foresight. bellingcat.com/news/mena/2020…

@bellingcat After an internal inquiry, OCPW stands by its Douma report, chides Inspectors A (Ian H.) and B ("Alex") for violating confidentiality rules.
• Press release: opcw.org/media-centre/n…
• Director-general's briefing: opcw.org/documents/2020…
• Investigation: opcw.org/sites/default/…