UPDATE 2000 GMT: The Violations Documentation Center expresses concern that Russian personnel may have tried to remove evidence of the Assad regime’s chemical attacks:
Russian military police entered Douma city today and inspected the suspected chemical attack site. Witnesses were not allowed near the site during the inspection, and it is unclear if the police took any substance or if they have tampered with any of the evidence. #Syria #Douma
— Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC) (@VDC_Syria) April 9, 2018
The Russians near the site of the attacks:
UPDATE 1945 GMT: Mohammed Alloush, a senior official of Jaish al-Islam, says bluntly why the rebel faction capitulated to Russian negotiators: “Chemical attacks were threatened again if we did not agree to the displacement.”
UPDATE 1645 GMT: The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says it has opened an investigation into the chemical attacks on Douma.
OPCW chief Ahmet Uzumcu said inspectors are responding with “grave concern” to the attacks.
With the Assad regime now controlling the area, the OPCW is unlikely to get access. Instead, it will interview witnesses, collect samples of blood from survivors, and gather data on military flights — the methods used to establish the Assad regime’s responsibility for the April 2017 sarin attack in northwest Syria.
In that case, the OPCW’s Joint Investigation Mechanism was able to assign blame. But Russia then refused to extend the JIM’s mandate, meaning the OPCW can establish what has occurred but — at least formally — not who is behind the attack.
See also VideoCast with CNN: Assad’s Chemical Attacks, Israel’s Strikes, & the US Response
TrumpWatch, Day 444: Assad’s Chemical Attacks Scuttle Trump’s “Withdrawal” Talk — But Will US Respond?
Israel Again Attacks Regime Airbase and Iranian Personnel in Central Syria
UPDATE 1230 GMT: The Violations Documentation Center, citing witnesses, has posted a timeline of the chemical attacks on Douma on Saturday.
About 12 pm: A Red Crescent center in Douma is targeted with two guided missiles and several barrel bombs. The center is immediately rendered out of service and ambulances are destroyed. The only remaining service for transporting the wounded in Douma is the civil defence. Syrian warplanes continue to drop barrel bombs that disrupt the travel of civil defense vehicles and rescue teams who are transporting the wounded due to lack of ambulance services.
About 4 pm: The Syrian air force targets Saada Bakery with an airstrike suspected to have contained poisonous gas. A rescuer said it appears to be chlorine: “Dead bodies were on the streets, the wounded were bleeding badly, and the medical crews were not sufficient for the large amount of cases.”
About 7:30pm: The Syrian air force targets Martyrs’ Square near the Numan Mosque in Douma with an airstrike suspected to have contained poisonous gas. A doctor says the symptoms of patients are an attack by “organic phosphorus compounds in the sarin gas category”, accompanied by the smell of chlorine.
UPDATE 1215 GMT: As he is forcibly removed from Douma, a medic says, “I will have the memories of my home that was bombed. I’m taking 2 bags, but my mind and memory hold so much of what we have lived through.”
The death toll from Saturday’s chemical attacks on Douma by Syria’s Assad regime has risen to at least 85, most of them women and children.
Seeking to break resistance to a capitulation deal, regime helicopters carried out two attacks on the town, the last in opposition-held East Ghouta near Damascus.
Reports circulated later in the day that the weekend’s chemical and conventional assault, which killed at least 225 people and wounded more than 1,000, had forced a rebel surrender. Jaish al-Islam, the faction in Douma, did not confirm the reports of a deal with Russian officials.
However, a bus with dozens of fighters and their families left for northern Syria, while a group of detainees, held since late 2013, were released and arrived at a regime crossing.
Both Syrian and Russian State media said the forced removal is the first of several in coming days, with Jaish al-Islam fighters and families displaced to Jarablus, near the border with Turkey. Numbers of 8,000 fighters and 40,000 relatives to be removed have been circulating.
E. #Ghouta: 1st busses carrying Jaish Islam fighters & civilians left #Duma while remaining fighters started to burn their weaponry in town. pic.twitter.com/BN4j5ilfrR
— Qalaat Al Mudiq (@QalaatAlMudiq) April 9, 2018
There were removals of the sick, injured, and fighters and families from other factions in the past two weeks, but Jaish al-Islam refused a full departure from Douma. That brought the renewal of regime-Russian attacks from last Friday.
The first attack on Saturday afternoon was with chlorine, the second on Saturday night is believed to have been with a stronger agent. Before the assault, pro-Assad warplanes — having knocked out or damaged most medical facilities — attacked the positions of first responders to limit rescues.
“It’s a catastrophe,” Mansour Abu al-Kheir, a rescuer, said. “No words or pictures can describe what civilians have lived through these past two days.”
The two-month pro-Assad offensive that reclaimed East Ghouta, held by the opposition since 2012, killed about 2,000 people, wounded thousands of others, and displaced tens of thousands of people.
“My Lungs Were Shutting Down”
Meanwhile, residents of Douma spoke of the chemical attacks which they survived.
Khaled Abu Jaafar talked of running down the stairs with a little girl in each arm and a wet piece of cloth over his mouth.
“I lost consciousness. I couldn’t breathe any more; it was like my lungs were shutting down,” he said. “I woke up about 30 minutes later and they had undressed me and were washing my body with water.”
Abu Jaffar, a radio station worker, confirmed that residents saw regime warplanes attacking with the chemicals:
While people were in the shelters, some on the roof managed to see the gas bombs as they dropped from the planes. Those who saw them rushed to tell everyone in the basement to evacuate….
There were basements in other buildings with people who didn’t see the gas in time. We entered those buildings and found bodies on the staircases and on the floor – they died while attempting to exit.
“We Are Being Exterminated”
Douma’s remaining doctors and emergency personnel are “almost totally paralyzed before the massive numbers of injured”, said doctor Muhammad al-Shami.
“Only a handful of doctors remain,” Fahad Hanan, a doctor and Douma resident, added. “We’ve been working in the hospital for two days straight. It’s a disaster.”
A resident said bluntly, “In short, we are being exterminated in Douma.”
Another corresponded with a journalist contact on social media, “The city of Douma is now the city of blood….I lost everything, even my house became rubble.”
Red Crescent Found No Trace of Chemical Weapons in Syria’s Douma: https://sputniknews.com/military/201804091063353366-syria-chemical-attack-denial/
“I have spent seven years working at the central hospital in Douma. At some point, our [hospital] received six people, who were allegedly suffering from respiratory problems. Following a medical examination, we did not find any problems at all, any traces of chemical agents,” Saif al-Deen Hobiya, a member of the Red Crescent, said.”
Assad gassed E. Ghouta. Did Assad gas Douma in the past 7 years? These are two separate areas.
No trace of chemical weapons at alleged attack site in Douma – Russian military: https://www.rt.com/news/423627-russian-military-checks-chemical-douma/
“Experts in radiological, chemical and biological warfare, as well as medics, on Monday inspected the parts of the Eastern Ghouta city of Douma, where an alleged chemical attack supposedly took place on Saturday, the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria said in a statement. The specialists “found no traces of the use of chemical agents” after searching the sites, the statement said.”
“US officials admitted that they were unable to independently verify any information about the alleged incident and had to rely solely on “reports” made by rebel-linked sources.”: https://www.rt.com/news/423524-douma-chemical-attack-fake-moscow/
Andre De Angelis – you said you would give me your email address so we can converse off-line. I have asked it half a dozen times since then. What is keeping you of performing to your word?
“Abu Jaffar, a radio station worker, confirmed that residents saw regime warplanes attacking with the chemicals.”
Editor, before you censor my comment (for no justifiable reason), consider the sheer lunacy of this claim. Warplanes drop bombs and missiles – these don’t show what it is in the warhead. You can’t tell if a bomb contains a toxic chemical until after it actually impacts on the ground and the gas has had a chance to disperse. Pro-opposition survivors of the Khan Sheykoon attack also made this silly claim last year: “Survivors being treated in a hospital on the Turkish side of the border told a CNN team they saw chemical bombs dropped from the air.”: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/05/middleeast/idlib-syria-attack/index.html The former British ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, rubbished this claim at the time: “I’ve seen testimony alleged from witnesses who said they saw chemical bombs dropping from the air. Well, you can not see chemical weapons dropping from the air. Such testimony is worthless.” http://freewestmedia.com/2017/04/08/former-uk-ambassador-says-no-proof-of-syrian-gas-attack/
You’re making an understandable mistake. You are reading the quote literally as if residents saw the chemicals while they were in the warplanes. In fact (as the Khan Sheikhoun investigation established), residents were referring to seeing warplanes dropping munitions which then released chemicals.
I doubt that is what they meant (although i would need to see the Arabic transcript to be sure). In any case, all that these eyewitnesses report is what has been happening on a daily basis where jets and helicopters have been bombing areas where rebels are holed up. For all we know, the SAA could have hit a building storing toxic chemicals (like ammonia or sodium hydroxide) if the harrowing videos of children being treated have not been staged for propaganda purposes. As the BBC (not friend of Assad) reports, “Neither the death toll nor what exactly occurred can be verified as the area is blocked off with access denied.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43706579
Who is blocking off the area? Who is preventing the OPCW to investigate? It is the regime and the Russians.
Wrong again Razmjoo. If I see a plane dropping something, and then it explodes, I will say the plane dropped a bomb. If the thing explodes with gas and people suffocate, I will say the plane dropped a chemical bomb. Your play on language is good ole propaganda which is not effective anymore.
Syria conflict: Russia says no evidence of Douma chemical attack: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43697670
shocker
This just in… The earth is flat!
Postmodernism says that truths are constructed. No wonder 25% of millennial youth, especially women and some minorities, believe that the earth may be flat. Same here. It is enough that 5% of millennials believe that the sarin attack was executed by the rebels on their own families – for Razmjoo to come here and copy and paste this nonsense.
Postmodernism says that truths are constructed. No wonder 25% of millennial youth, especially women and some minorities, believe that the earth may be flat.
How does that explain that 37% of Americans believe in intelligent design? 80% believe in angels – which is roughly the same number that believed Iraq had WMD.
WMD precursors and mobile production rooms were discovered in Iraq. So Bush and Blair were not far off.
Wrong. No mobile production rooms were discovered in Iraq.
https://www.salon.com/2006/04/12/labs
In fact, the guy who made up the lies about those mobile weapons labs admitted he made it up
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/curveball-man-who-lied-about-wmds-comes-clean/2012/04/03/gIQAUdditS_blog.html?utm_term=.25881b42459c
Bush and Blair lied. People died.
“The death toll from Saturday’s chemical attacks on Douma by Syria’s Assad regime has risen to at least 85, most of them women and children.”
This statement is false for two basic reasons:
1. There has been no scientific confirmation of a chemical attack in Douma. involving a nerve agent (chlorine almost certainly couldn’t kill 85 people unless they were all in a small room).
2. There is no evidence, other than some eyewitness reports of a helicopter dropping a “barrel bomb”, that the Syrian government is responsible for whatever occurred.
Hmm, doctors are pretty reliable sources, I’ve found. And eyewitness reports of regime warplanes/helicopters are pretty strong indicators….
A good rule of thumb is that nothing should be believed until the Kremlin denies it; and the more vehement their denials, the more accurate story is.
A good rule of thumb is that nothing should be believed until the Kremlin denies it; and the more vehement their denials, the more accurate story is.
Same goes for the White House and Downing Street.
False relativistic equivalency.
No, accurate comparison. In fact the fake Iraq war dossier was so pathetic it was plagiarized from a University student paper.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/feb/08/politics.iraq
Razmjoo, in your defense, there is some evidence that rebels have a helicopter manufacturing plant in Douma. That is how they manage to bomb themselves with sarin gas, pretending that the helicopter is Assad’s. Furthermore, the rebels stole the helicopter blueprints from Assad and handed them over to the US military. This is why US helicopter technology leads the world. All technology is stolen by the colonialists.