Monday 12 May 2014

Photographs From Daniele Raineri Of Chemical Barrel Bombs In Syria

Today, the Daily Telegraph published a pair of articles on chemical barrel bombs in Syria, "Syrian chemical weapons use backed-up by second investigation", and "Found: the bombs that delivered Syria's chlorine gas" by Daniele Raineri.

Daniele took a number of photographs of the remains of the barrel bombs, some of which were published in the Daily Telegraph.  He's now given me permission to publish the remaining 59 photographs online, the full collection of which can be found here.

The following pictures shows the remains of a cylinder that has a number of interesting features


This appears to be the same chemical barrel bomb featured in this video from Kafr Zita on April 18th


As I noted in an earlier post, det cord has been wrapped around the neck of the cylinder, shown below


It would appear the function of this is to blow off the end of the cylinder using the least explosive power possible, reducing the among of chlorine gas destroyed in the explosion.  One photograph may show an example where this configuration has functioned as intended


Another interesting feature of the same barrel bomb is the metal bar with two large bolt which sits in front of the cylinder


The same metal bar and bolt assembly is visible in a video from another reported attack in Telmens on April 21st


I believe the function of this assembly is to hold the cylinder away from the base of the bomb, so during impact the cylinder doesn't end up buried in the ground, preventing the release of gas.  There's also a slot in the casing of the barrel bomb, next to the end of the cylinder, which could be there to allow gas to be released on impact.  This would strongly suggest more effort has gone into the design of these munitions than simply placing a gas cylinder inside a barrel bomb.

More videos showing the remains of chemical barrel bombs can be found here, and the remaining Daniele Raineri photographs can be found here.

10 comments:

  1. well ... only gas containers at those bombs ?? i mean the common idea about them that there is gas container + some tnt ,,,,, and they give a yellow color clouds ,,, when they detonate ,,,

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  2. Question? How many cylinder per barrel bomb?

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  3. The videos and pictures above demonstrate a high form of idiotic thinking. Lets think about this for a second. When they hear or see the helicopters people scramble everywhere. These cylinders fall down onto the ground and the gas gushes out everywhere. However, gas spreads out into the air. So if you are 100 feet from this cylinder you wouldnt get that much effect from it. Whats in the cylinder is chlorine and not Sarin. They stopped using chlorine during World War I because it was not that effective.

    Another form of idiotic thinking is the paper masks the rebels are wearing around the cylinder. Will those paper masks really protect them? I also wouldnt be touching that thing with a ten foot pole let alone get up close to it because there might be some unexploded ordinance. Either the rebels are very brave or very stupid.

    So we have the Syrian regime and the rebels resorting to absolute idiocy. Its no wonder the war has lasted so long.

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    1. well ,,, the idea is not only killing ,,,, it is part of the genocide ,,,, and this type of gas is used to kill a limited number of people ,,, Assad does not want a great number of killed people by one strike ,,, it just want to scare people and kill some of them ,,,,, to clear the west of syria to make sort of safe belt around the area he want s to control if he could not win this war ,,,,,,

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  4. Looks like those things the rebels shoot out of "hell cannons", check them out at LiveLeak.

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    1. Hell Cannon projectiles are generally made from old propane tanks and are painted blue...and look nothing like the above projectiles.

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    2. no cuz there are videos show the helicopters dropping them

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  5. These photo's don't prove anything ,just rusty metal and an imaginary narrative by someone trying to convince people it's real, quite sad really there is no evidence other than what the rebels say..period.

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    1. As a Chemical Engineer, who has been following the war more or less everyday since the siege of Bab Amr, their view has more evidence than yours. No worries though, the first step in plenty of endeavors of scientific research has been recognizing that anyone can be wrong, including yourself.

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  6. As a fellow sceptic, I'd have to disagree with you. I worked in the compressed gas industry. I checked out their link to other pictures. You can see each one has a stamp- CL 2- the chemical abbreviation for chlorine gas. These are simple, even primitive, chemical bombs that are designed more to terrorize than to kill as the cylinders are small, the chlorine is heavier than air & disperses with the wind & only fatal in high concentrations in closed locations, like if it hits your house... The detcord can easily blow off the cylinder bung- Utube ex: of beer keg unbunged ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OmFmsjIt2E
    google chlorine cyinders to see images of commercial cylinders
    This is a simple nasty cheap design for a terror chemical weapon, but Not the WMD that the media hyped.

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