Making Sense Of Russia's Evolving Narrative For The August 21st Sarin Attacks

Since the August 21st attack Russia has made a series of claims about the attacks that have evolved as the weeks have gone by.  The initial Russian reaction was to denounce the "biased regional media's....aggressive information attack, laying all the responsibility on the government", with Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich claiming a "homemade rocket with a poisonous substance that has not been identified yet – one similar to the rocket used by terrorists on March 19 in Khan al-Assal - was fired early on August 21 [at Damascus suburbs] from a position occupied by the insurgents."  Clearly at odds with the UN report, which links two different types of munitions to the attacks, including a M14 140mm artillery rocket.

On August 23rd, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich made a new claim

More new evidence is starting to emerge that this criminal act was clearly provocative.  On the internet, in particular, reports are circulating that news of the incident carrying accusations against government troops was published several hours before the so-called attack. So, this was a pre-planned action.

This appears to have referred to multiple reports at the time that some of the videos supposedly posted on August 21st appeared with a date of August 20th, as reported by a number of sites, with those claims being republished by sites such as Russia Today, and Voice of Russia.  Below we have a screenshot from Islamic Invitation Turkey Voice of Russia used in their coverage

This obviously seemed like a very significant development, but one that hadn't been very thoroughly investigated by those making the claim.  Investigations by Storyful and others brought to attention that fact that the date displayed on YouTube videos from Syria are in fact the local time where the servers are located, in this case California, which is several hours behind Syria.  This results in videos being uploaded in the early morning in Syria being dated the day before.  It's possible to confirm the actual time a video was uploaded from metadata attached to the video, and all the videos from the August 21st attack were confirmed as being uploaded on August 21st using this data.

On August 25th the Russian foreign ministry urged against "hurried conclusions", stating

We strongly urge those who, in trying to impose their opinion on U.N. experts ahead of the results of an investigation, announce the possibility of military action against Syria, to exercise discretion and not make tragic mistakes

Following that statement Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, held a press conference, and referenced the now discredited claims about YouuTube upload times; "There is information that videos were posted on the internet hours before the purported attack, and other reasons to doubt the rebel narrative", adding "Those involved with the incident wanted to sabotage the upcoming Geneva peace talks. Maybe that was the motivation of those who created this story. The opposition obviously does not want to negotiate peacefully."  It seems the Russian foreign ministry's warning against "hurried conclusions" only went one way.

On August 29th the small independent media organisation Mint Press published a piece, Syrians In Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack, which the Russian foreign ministry would cite in a number of future statements.  The article claimed that "rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack."

The article has generated a great deal of controversy, not least for it's content.  One of the two claimed authors, Dale Gavlak, has now distanced herself from the article, claiming her contribution to the article was editing non-native speaker Yahya Ababneh's use of English, and helping Yahya pitch it to Mint Press.  She claims she clearly told Mint Press "this should go under Yahya Ababneh's byline. I helped him write up his story but he should get all the credit for this."  As her reputation was used to give the article by the virtually unknown Ababneh credibility, this controversy has brought the content of the article into doubt.

As for the article itself, the claims of rebel involvement in the August 21st attack actually seems quite thin.  There's talk of an accident in tunnels releasing chemicals, killing a number of rebels in the area, but it doesn't claim this event and the August 21st attack are linked. In fact, only the headline (which Dale Gavlak told me was written by Mint Press) and this section makes any reference to the August 21st attack

However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.

Beyond the headline and that one paragraph, there's no further claims that the rebels were responsible for the August 21st attack, and certainly none of the quotes from locals link the rebels to the August 21st attack.  This didn't stop it becoming part of Russia's ongoing attempts to blame the opposition for the August 21st attack.

On September 16th Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, came out with more claims about the August 21st attack, dropping the earlier claims of YouTube videos being uploaded before the attack took place.

There is lots of evidence delivered by independent experts onsite [a nun from a local convent, other eyewitnesses and Western reporters] and European and U.S. experts, including twelve retired officers of the Pentagon and the CIA who sent an open letter to President Barack Obama to explain how the case had been falsified, unfortunately, a lot had been done before the St. Petersburg meeting by bad people who used poisonous chemical substances largely, in our opinion, to provoke a retaliation strike against the regime and shifted the responsibility for the use of chemical weapons, although that was totally illogical and Russian President Vladimir Putin said so many times.

Putting aside claims about nuns and retired Pentagon and CIA officers for now, you'll note he mentions "other eyewitnesses and Western reporters" as "independent experts onsite".  In a later comments made on September 22nd he's reported as saying

Evidence given by witnesses and journalists showed that rebels acquired “some shells from abroad that they had never seen and had no idea of how to use them, and then finally they used them,” Lavrov said. 

Claims he repeated in a September 25th interview with the Washington Post

Russia is still saying that it was the rebels who fired the chemical weapons on Aug. 21 — not the Assad regime?Yes, we believe there is very good evidence to substantiate this.

Are you willing to present this evidence?Yes, I just presented a compilation of evidence to John Kerry when we met a couple of hours ago. This evidence is not something revolutionary. It’s available on the Internet. They are reports by journalists who visited the sites and talked to the combatants, who said they were given some unusual rockets and ammunition by some foreign country and they didn’t know how to use them. There is also evidence from the nuns living in the monastery nearby who visited the site. You can read the assessments by the chemical weapons experts who say that the images shown do not correspond to a real situation if chemical weapons were used. And we also know about the open letter sent to President Obama by former operatives of the CIA saying the assertion that the [Syrian] government used chemical weapons was fake. So you don’t need to have any spy reports to make your own conclusions, you only need to carefully watch what is available in public.

As far as I'm aware, apart from the Yahya Ababneh's Mint Press article, there's no other journalists who have claimed to have visited the site, and recounted the story of  combatants who were "given some unusual rockets and ammunition by some foreign country and they didn’t know how to use them.".  It seems clear Lavrov has repeatedly referred to the Mint Press article, which has become increasingly controversial by the day.

Lavrov and the Russian foreign ministry also repeatedly refers to "nuns living in the monastery nearby who visited the site".  This seems to refer to the controversial nun, who has made a number of statements in the past supporting the Syrian government, including claiming the Syrian opposition were responsible for the notorious Houla massacre, and has been described as

According to the Swiss newspaper Le Courrier, Agnès-Mariam was “comfortable among [Assad’s] security services,” and she told their reporter it was hoped he could “dismantle the propaganda of Western media.” 

On September 6th she was interviewed by Russia Today ('Footage of chemical attack in Syria is fraud'), and made a number of claims about the attack, which were later repeated in a 50 page report her organisation prepared.  According to a BBC report on her work, her report asked

• Ghouta, the main area to the east of Damascus which came under attack, was already "deserted", so why were there were so many civilian casualties?
• Why are so many children seen in the videos without their parents? There is "a flagrant lack of real families"
• Why are there so few women in the videos and why are so many people unidentified?
• Why is there so little evidence of burials?

In response, Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, stated "There's just no basis for the claims advanced by Mother Agnes.  She is not a professional video forensic analyst... we have found no evidence to indicate any of the videos were fabricated.".  In addition to that, he addressed the questions raised by her report

• There were tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the Ghouta area of Damascus, according to very regular reports received by Human Rights Watch
• Children were often sleeping in the basements of buildings in significant concentrations because of the intense shelling and that is why so many died (Sarin gas accumulates at low levels)
• The dead and those injured in the chemical attack were moved from place to place and room to room both at the clinics and ultimately for burial
• There were many men and women who were victims of the attacks. But there were separate rooms for the bodies of children, men and women so they could be washed for burial
• Almost all of the victims have been buried
• Human rights researchers have spoken to the relatives of Alawite women and children abducted by rebels. None of them said they had recognised their loved ones in the gas attack videos

There's also the third major claim Lavrov was pushing, that former CIA and Pentagon officers "saying the assertion that the [Syrian] government used chemical weapons was fake".  Michael Kelley of Business Insider looked at this claim, stating

Lavrov then cited an open letter sent to President Obama by former operatives of the CIA that cites the Mint Press report and states that they are "unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area." 

The UN chemical inspectors investigation described the size and structure of two rocket delivery systems used and report the direction some of the rockets likely came from. The report doesn't ascribe blame but present evidence that is damning for Assad.

In addition to these claims, on October 1st, Lavrov, referring to an earlier chemical attack in Khan al-Assal the Russians have blamed on the opposition, stated

We have no doubt that sarin gas – which was used on March 19 in Aleppo, is home-made… We also have information to corroborate that in the course of the tragic events of August 21, when chemical weapons were used, sarin gas of a very similar chemical signature to the one on March 19, was used, but of a much higher concentration 

Again, a Khan al-Assal link, but instead of claiming the same type of rocket was used in both attack (which the UN report seems to have disproven), Lavrov is now claiming it was Sarin with a very similar chemical signature.  Not only that, it's home-made Sarin, and following the logic of his earlier claims, this is home-made Sarin made by the Saudi's and provided to the Syrian opposition in Damascus, and therefore must have also been provided to the opposition for the Khan al-Assal attacks.  If true, this would implicate the Saudi's in not only the August 21st attack, but also the earlier Khan al-Assal attack, which would obviously be huge.  On October 4th Interfax reported

A group sent by Saudi Arabia from Jordanian territory is responsible for the August 21 chemical weapons provocation that was staged in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus, Russian diplomatic sources told Interfax. 

"Having analyzed this information, which was received from a whole range of sources, we are getting the picture confirming that the criminal provocation in Eastern Ghouta was committed by a specialized group that was sent by Saudi Arabia from the territory of Jordan and acted under the cover of the Liwa al-Islam group," one of the sources said.

So now we have a "specialised group" acting under the cover of "Liwa al-Islam" staging "criminal provocation", who traveled to Eastern Ghouta via Jordan.  It's unclear if they brought the barrels of home-made Sarin with them, or they were already there when they arrived.  Despite the claimed linked between the Sarin used in the Khan al-Assal attack and the Eastern Ghouta attack, according to Russia it must have been two different groups responsible, because when they submitted their report on the Khan al-Assal attack to the UN, they stated

It was determined that on March 19 the rebels fired an unguided missile Bashair-3 at the town of Khan al-Assal, which has been under government control. The results of the analysis clearly show that the shell used in Khan al-Assal was not factory made and that it contained sarin

And that

According to Moscow, the manufacture of the ‘Bashair-3’ warheads started in February, and is the work of Bashair al-Nasr, a brigade with close ties to the Free Syrian Army. 

So does this mean the home-made Sarin provided by Saudi Arabic supposedly used in both attacks was in one instance provided to Bashair al-Nasr, while in the Eastern Ghouta attack it was a team of special agents under the guise of Liwa al-Islam who deployed it? Maybe the Khan al-Assal attack was executed by a team of special agents pretending to be Bashair al-Nasr?

Or maybe, as Russia's attempts to blame the opposition for the August 21st attack get more convoluted, they make less and less sense.

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com.

Prominent Daraa Based Activist Nasser Abu Jamal Killed

Anyone who watches many of the videos from Syria is probably familiar with this activist from Daraa, Nasser Abu Jamal

He's featured in many of the videos that have come from the Daraa region, including the well known video showing FSA fighters being taught how to use Croatian weapons

Graphic video was published show Nasser injured this week, and it's now been reported he has died from his injures

Media activist Abudl Naser al-Sahnbouri, aka Abu Jamal, was one of the uprising’s most prominent activists. He used to risk his life covering events on the front lines of the battles fought between the FSA and the criminal Assad’s troops in various parts of our beloved Daraa. He was injured many times before he died, whether because of violent bombardment or snipers’ fire; the last time before his death he was hit with a sniper bullet in his shoulder when he was in the town of Kafr Shams, covering the battle of “Izzaa”. Abu Jamal filmed many videos and toured various parts of Daraa. He was born in 1989 (the comments under the post say 1984), married with three kids. Prior to the uprising, he used to live in Damascus, but moved to Daraa with the start of the revolution in order to cover it and document the atrocities committed against the civilians and to convey the truth. Abu Jamal studied Sharia besides being an imam and an orator. A few days ago, the Islamist and FSA battalions announced the launching of an offensive dubbed “Uniting the Ranks” which was aimed at capturing the military checkpoints and barracks in the west of the province, and  to be followed by capturing Daraa city. Today, Abu Jamal was covering the fierce battles in the town of Tafas when he was injured by shrapnel in his belly. While he was being given first aid he asked those around him to take care of his wife and kids. Due to lack of medical staff in the field hospital he was later moved to Jordan where he died. His liver was severely injured. He died in Al-Jazeera hospital in Jordan.

Update October 5th EA Worldview has more information on him here.
You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com.

Kurdish Sources Deny Any Knowledge Of Videos Showing Liwa al-Islam Launching The August 21st Sarin Attack

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about videos that had been posted on LiveLeak and YouTube by the same user, at the same time, claiming to show Liwa al-Islam launching rockets on August 21st which were linked to the Sarin attack on the same day (see here).  The implication of the video is Liwa al-Islam accidentally gassed Eastern Ghouta on August 21st when they intended to hit Assad's forces in Quboun and Jobar.  All videos had the following description

September 15. Kurdish Peshmerga killed three Syrian terrorists on border. They found cell phone in pocket. Night bombing video there. Terrorists on video wear gas masks. Video was shot August 21. One terrorist name it Storm operation.

These videos struck me as highly dubious for a number of reasons, including.

• They were uploaded to two totally new LiveLeak and YouTube accounts, which is unusual for any video coming out of Syria, and in line with the way in which other dubious videos were uploaded. 
• Everyone but the cameraman was wearing a gas mask.
• People were wearing gas masks, but also short sleeves that exposed their skin, which would readily absorb any Sarin in the air.
• They've gone to a lot of trouble to make it clear it's August 21st, Liwa al-Islam are launching the rockets, and have gone to the trouble of hanging banners everywhere and lighting the launchers with the truck.  Having done all that they fail to use a decent camera, and don't even hold it the right way up.  Considering Liwa al-Islam's experience in producing videos it seems unlikely they'd make that mistake.
• You have to question why they would do an operation under the cover of darkness, only to light up the launcher with a big spotlight that would make it stand out for miles around.

There's various other issues that make these videos seem very suspect (which there's an on-going discussion about on Storyful's Open Newsroom), but one thing I was very interested in is the source of the videos.  As the description says, "Kurdish Peshmerga" supposedly took this from the mobile phone of "Syrian terrorists" on an unspecified border (likely Iraq as it talks about Kurdish Peshmerga), so they seem like the people to ask.  I contacted the journalist Hozan Ibrahim, who has many contacts with various Kurdish groups, and asked if he could ask his contacts what they knew about the video.  After a few days he came back to me:

I've called many sources from the Kurdish PYD, and they do not have any idea about these videos.  They denied their forces have arrested people who had these videos. Also today I contacted some people in Iraqi Kurdistan who are close to the Kurdish Peshmerga, they also denied having any knowledge of the videos. Most of PYD media sources said that these videos are fake.

The question is, how likely is it that no-one in those groups would know about a video they captured from dead "Syrian terrorists" that would be solid proof of Liwa al-Islam's involvement in the August 21st attack, especially if they went to the trouble of uploading them to two YouTube and LiveLeak accounts?  Unless a source from the Kurdish Peshmerga comes out and says they knew about these videos and who uploaded them, it seems these videos are more likely fakes created to blame Liwa al-Islam for the August 21st attack, and judging by the presence of the rocket launchers only seen in government hands (see here) it would appear to point to the Syrian military being the ones doing the faking.

More posted on the subject of the August 21st attacks can be found here, and other posts on chemical weapons and Syria, including extremely informative interviews with chemical weapon specialists, can be found here.

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com.

The Syrian Islamic Front Claim To Have Stopped A Mosque Bombing By Government Agents

Today the following video was posted online by the Syrian Islamic Front

The video shows a brief statement on what the video shows, followed by the confession of one of the men involved

0:08 unnamed man: An Assad’s criminal gang was caught in Idlib. It was sent by the Militrary Security Branch (one of Assad’s various security apparatuses) and was planning to set a number of car bombs in the liberated areas in northern Idlib. They were taken to the Sharia Court. The car bombs were to be put near mosques. The truck bomb was detonated in a remote area.

0:15 I am Alaa’ Muhammed al-Basha (علاء محمد الباشا) from the town of Binnish (بنش). The Military Security Branch in Idilib tempted us by money and gave each one of us SYP 100.000 to park a Kia truck bomb near a mosque in al-Dana (الدانة). The truck was loaded with more than three tons of explosives. (He mentions the same number on the plate of the truck)

0:51 the cameraman explains how the explosives were hidden in a box made of metal plates and that the truck looks empty.
2:10 he shows the fuse
2:35 the truck bomb will be detonated because it was too difficult to defuse the bomb. 

This incident follows another reported series of arrests in the town of Morek (مورك) near Hama on September 24th where it was claimed three men were arrested planting the following devices in an attempt to kill opposition commanders (source)

The use of IEDs by the Syrian army seems to have become increasingly widespread in the past year, with a number of examples being posted online (see here), and it's not the first time a car bomb has been allegedly used to target a mosque, with this example from July 2012.  As always, it should be made clear it's difficult to independently verify the claims made the the opposition in these circumstances.

Related posts
Leaked Video Gives A Rare Insight Into Government Recruitment Drives In Aleppo
More Translated Radio Communications From Qusayr
Intercepted Radio Conversations Gives An Insight Into The Fighting In Qusayr
Syrian Activists Claim Al Mayadeen News Tweets FSA Positions To The Syrian Air Force
Brigadier General Salim Idris And Lebanese Cleric Sheikh Ahmad Al-Aseer Take A Trip To Syria

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Things That Are Not True - Only Rebels Use Weapons Mounted On Trucks With Non-Military Colours

One claim that's been constantly repeated by people attempting to prove the Syrian military was not responsible for the August 21st Sarin attack is that the Syrian military would never use trucks with non-military colours.  This claim is a response to the following videos and pictures, that appears to show the same type of munition linked to the August 21st Sarin attack being launched.  As always, it should be noted that the type of munition used has at least two variants, and possible a third, larger, high explosive variant

These photographs and videos from Damascus and Aleppo claim to show the Syrian army using these truck mounted weapons, but the argument has been that these are clearly non-military vehicles, something only the Syrian opposition uses.  While it's true the Syrian opposition mounts plenty of different weapons on trucks of various shapes and sizes, it's certainly not true that only the Syrian opposition uses non-military trucks in this way.  The following video is from a missile test in the Summer of 2012, where a variety of missiles and rockets were launched from the 155th brigade base

As we can see in the video, there's clearly trucks with non-military colour schemes being used to launch large rockets or missiles

The same missile test was also broadcast on State TV, with images of the same vehicles

So it's pretty clear the claim that only the Syrian opposition uses trucks with non-military colours is an inaccurate statement.  In fact, it's not that unusual, as these photos from an Iranian military parade shows (source)

More posted on the subject of the August 21st attacks can be found here, and other posts on chemical weapons and Syria, including extremely informative interviews with chemical weapon specialists, can be found here.

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com.

A Chemical Weapons Expert Responds To The Article "Questions Plague UN Report on Syria"

Earlier this week an article was published by Al Akhbar, Questions Plague UN Report on Syria, making a number of claims about the UN report, including "There is not a single environmental sample in Moadamiyah that tested positive for Sarin." and "It is scientifically improbable that survivors would test that highly for exposure to Sarin without a single trace of environmental evidence testing positive for the chemical agent.".  This is then used to claim that the 140mm artillery rockets fired at Moadamiyah were not carrying Sarin, as widely reported, and that the trajectory of these rockets, as per the UN report, which crosses over with the trajectory of other rockets fired at Eastern Ghouta over the Syrian army’s Republican Guard 104th Brigade base, is indicative of nothing, as the munitions did not contain Sarin.

One of the chemical weapon experts quoted in the article is Dan Kaszeta, who has responded to the article with a FAQ he's published online.

Q: The article claims "not a single environmental sample in Moadamiyah that tested positive for Sarin." - What is your reaction to this?

I consider this statement to be a misleading half-truth that “cherry picks” from the UN report. It is true in respect to the fact that no actual Sarin was found in the 13 environmental samples taken from Moadamiyah. But the samples show DIMP, IMPA, and MPA, all of which are strong indicators of Sarin. The environmental samples are clear indicators that Sarin was used because of the clear presence of chemicals that are clearly decomposition products (IMPA, MPA) and impurities (DIMP), all of which persist longer in the environment than Sarin itself.

There are several plausible reasons why the UN team did not collect a sample of actual Sarin at the Moadamiyah. Any or all of the following explanatory or contributory factors may have applied to this circumstance:

• The 140mm rocket alleged to have been used in Moadamiyah is patently smaller than the devices used elsewhere. Therefore, there it would carry far less chemical agent than larger devices. There may have been less Sarin to find at each individual site where the 140mm rocket was used.
• The UN report states that they did not find the actual warhead. Their photos are of the rocket section, not the agent-carrying portion of the rocket.
• The lack of a payload-carrying section indicates to me that the explosive bursting charge of the rocket functioned as intended. The US Army used approximately a 3.3:1 ratio by weight of Sarin to conventional explosive in the US’s closest analogue to the 140mm rocket, the M55 115mm rocket. As a Soviet-designed 140mm rocket carried approx. 2.2 kg of Sarin, a comparable ratio would indicate an explosive charge of 650-700 grams of explosive. From my own direct experience with explosives in my military and law enforcement training, such a quantity would shred the rocket’s warhead section into small fragments. As metal fragments are a likely place to collect a Sarin sample, the fragments at Moadamiyah may have been too small to locate or indeed too small to contain an effective sample of the agent.
• A fully effective and efficient explosive dissemination of a 140mm rocket carrying Sarin would create an aerosol of finely divided droplets, with little or no pooling or puddles of Sarin, making it harder to find a trace of actual Sarin. This factor presumes that the munition efficiency (the percentage of Sarin dispensed as an aerosol to create rapid effects) of the 140mm rocket is higher than that of the larger system used elsewhere. Based on my knowledge of chemical weapons design, I believe this to be the case.
• If the location in Moadamiyah under investigation had been exposure to more ventilation, more moisture, or both, the evaporation and degradation of Sarin would have been increased relative to other locations. With the information available to me, I cannot know whether this was the case or not.

Q: The same article claims "It is scientifically improbable that survivors would test that highly for exposure to Sarin without a single trace of environmental evidence testing positive for the chemical agent." How do you answer this question?

This is an untrue statement unsupported by the facts. The statement appears to betray an ignorance of the relationship of Sarin to its degradation products. As I state above Sarin degrades into IMPA and/or MPFA. IMPA is a direct daughter compound of Sarin.

Q: The article also states that sarin can last "for months, sometimes years in the environment." Could you clarify the situation where that would be the case?

The persistence (or not) of Sarin in the environment depends on numerous variables.  The fate of Sarin in the environment is effected by evaporation, hydrolysis, and thermal decomposition. I will address each in turn:

• Evaporation. Sarin has a non-trivial vapor pressure and a relatively low “latent heat of vaporization” (the energy required to go from liquid state to vapor state) at normal temperatures. Therefore, Sarin is a volatile liquid, and it will evaporate into the air if given the chance to do so. In open contact with the air, Sarin liquid cannot be expected to last for more than a few hours. 30 minutes at 15º C is stated by one German authority. In situation where the liquid Sarin is trapped and not exposed to air, it may persist for some time. 
• Hydrolyis. Sarin will decompose into IMPA or MPFA in contact with moisture.  Sarin not in contact with moisture, such as humidity in the air or soil, will last longer.
• Thermal decomposition. Sarin thermally decomposes rapidly above 150º C.

Sarin without direct contact with air or water or extreme heat simply has less means to evaporate or degrade. Sarin trapped in a way where it has no access to air or water will significantly increase its persistence in the environment. In addition, liquid Sarin absorbs into some surfaces. I find samples 27 and 28 particularly revealing, as they are from window seals/gaskets. This is exactly where I would look for Sarin.

Q: Would you agree with the UN's claim on page 5 of the report that "The environmental, chemical and medical samples we have collected provide clear and compelling evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent Sarin were used in Ein Tarma, Moadamiyah and Zamalka in the Ghouta area of Damascus."?

Yes. I believe that the environmental samples are conclusive. The medical evidence is somewhat less conclusive in my mind, but only because the methodology by which the samples were analyzed is not clearly stated.

Q: Considering the evidence in the UN report, do you agree with the articles conclusion that the 140mm artillery rockets fired at Moadamiyah did not contain Sarin?

I do not agree with this conclusion. I can think of no other reason to account for the presence of DIMP and IMPA at the scene.

Q: The article quotes you as saying "environmental and medical evidence cannot conceivably be considered a scientifically or statistically accurate sample of the population of affected victims. It would be considered scientifically unsound to draw widespread conclusions based simply on this sample." Could you expand on what you mean here?

The only point I am making with that statement is that the sample population of 36 individuals is too small to be considered statistically adequate to represent the entire population of thousands of people affected by the attacks. It is just too small a slice of the theoretical data set to allow one to draw widespread conclusions about the whole incident. A statistician could shed more light on the science behind this, as it has been over 20 years since my last statistics class.

My statement should not be taken to mean that we cannot learn from the data collected on the 36 people. Nor should my original statement be taken as a statement that I do not believe Sarin was used. As I state in my earlier report, I firmly believe Sarin was used, based on the evidence of the UN Report. My statement just means we can’t apply those particular findings based on 36 people to the broader population of many thousands with any expectation of accuracy.

Q: The same article also highlights you're concerns over the mixture of symptoms not matching that of past sarin attacks; "Is it possible that we are looking at exposure to multiple causes of injury? Were some of the examined victims exposed to other things in addition to Sarin? I am not stating that Sarin was not used. It clearly was. My point is that it is either not behaving as we have understood it in the past or that other factors were at work in addition to Sarin" Could you expand on that point?

The point I was trying to make is as follows: One logical explanation behind the diverse and variegated signs and symptoms noted in the report may be the fact that we are looking at exposure to more than one thing. In simpler terms, did other chemicals cause injury in addition to Sarin.

There are numerous ways in which this could be the case. One possibility is widespread presence of smoke and other respiratory irritants. One theory I would like to explore is binary chemical weapons.

A binary chemical weapon is one that combines several components to create the chemical agent desired, generally by mixing the two chemicals in flight on the way to the target. Both the US and Soviet Union developed this technique during the Cold War.  For example, a binary weapon could create Sarin. One excellent example of this was  the M687 artillery shell developed by the US Army.  The M687 was designed to  combine two canisters mid flight after being fired from a 155mm howitzer. One canister  contained DF (Methylphosphonic difluoride – see above) while the other canister contained a mix of isopropyl alcohol and isopropyl amine. The two canisters would mix  to create Sarin. The actual success of inflight mixing was very difficult to achieve and was the result of much research, development, and test firing both with simulant chemicals and live agents.

My theory is that the larger 330-360mm rocket may have been designed as a binary agent to combine chemicals to create Sarin. However, the ‘dark art’ of perfecting the inflight mixing may not have been learned by its designers. In such a case, the device would disseminate a mix of chemicals upon impact or detonation. Some Sarin would be created, but an awful lot of precursors would be present. None of these precursors are pleasant substances and their general proclivity to cause respiratory and eye irritation could explain the relatively ubiquitous but generic respiratory and eye symptoms. In addition, the presence of MPFA at the locations tied to the larger rocket, but not the smaller rocket, could support this theory. This is because MPFA is a direct decomposition product of DF, the Sarin binary component.

Q: Wouldn’t the attackers just mix up the chemicals, THEN pour them into the rocket?

There’s no theoretical reason why that couldn’t happen. It’s just that it seems a dim idea to do it that way. Taking dangerous chemicals and mixing them in open air to create an even more dangerous chemical, which would evaporate and cause a downwind hazard seems like a difficult thing to get soldiers to do, and that’s speaking in my capacity as a former Chemical Corps Officer. Anyone forced to do do would probably rush and make mistakes or do a poor job of it. Mixing binary components before putting them both in the weapon would negate all of the advantages of having a binary weapon in the first place. Using pure, unitary agent would achieve much higher efficiency at the same or lower (non-trivial) level of danger to the troops handling the agent. I see little point in a binary system that isn’t an in-flight mixing technique.

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All these questions and more can be found on Dan Kaszeta's FAQ.

More posted on the subject of the August 21st attacks can be found here, and other posts on chemical weapons and Syria, including extremely informative interviews with chemical weapon specialists, can be found here.

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com.

Launchers For Munitions Linked To The August 21st Sarin Attack Filmed At Mezzeh Airbase

Since publishing my last post, Evidence Of The Syrian Army Using Munitions Linked To The August 21st Sarin Attack, which examined evidence of the high explosive variant of the munition linked to the August 21st Sarin attack (which I've dubbed UMLACAs) being fired from Mezzeh Airbase in Damascus, I've being searching through videos from the surrounding area, searching for more examples of the rockets being fired from the airbase.  What I've found are six videos from December 2012 and January 2013 showing the launchers for the UMLACAs in operation inside Mezzeh Airbase, clear evidence that the Syrian military had the equipment required to launch the munitions linked to the August 21st Sarin attack.

The following video, posted on December 23rd 2012, shows the clearest view of the munition being launched

The below image shows the clearest view of the munition, and I've adjusted the levels on the image to make the shape as clear as possible.

As you can see this matches the unusual shape of the UMLACA.  Below we see the launcher

This twin barreled launcher appears to be of the same type photographed in Aleppo in November 2012, shown below, with the second picture showing it apparently loaded with an UMLACA

We get a much clearer view of the launcher in the next two videos from Mezzeh airbase

Another two videos show what appears to be the same vehicle launching rockets from Mezzeh Airbase

With a sixth video showing a launcher with the same launch profile seen in the above videos

It seems there's an ever increasing body of evidence confirming the Syrian government are capable of launching the rockets used in the August 21st attack, and that they've been using those launchers since at least November 2012.  These videos are from one location in Damascus, but we know there's at least one video showing an UMLACA launch from Qadam railway station in Damascus, so it might be time to revisit some old videos showing rocket launches, and giving them an extra close look.

More posted on the subject of the August 21st attacks can be found here, and other posts on chemical weapons and Syria, including extremely informative interviews with chemical weapon specialists, can be found here.

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com.