Russia...more poisoning

The New York Times wrote:Worst Chemical Attack in Years in Syria

ANNE BARNARD and MICHAEL R. GORDONAPRIL 4, 2017

BEIRUT, Lebanon — One of the worst chemical bombings in Syria turned a northern rebel-held area into a toxic kill zone on Tuesday, inciting international outrage over the ever-increasing government impunity shown in the country’s six-year war.

Western leaders including Cheeto-Faced Ferret-Wearing Shit Gibbon blamed the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and called on its patrons, Russia and Iran, to prevent a recurrence of what many described as a war crime.

Dozens of people, including children, died — some writhing, choking, gasping or foaming at the mouth — after breathing in poison that possibly contained a nerve agent or other banned chemicals, according to witnesses, doctors and rescue workers. They said the toxic substance spread after warplanes dropped bombs in the early morning hours. Some rescue workers grew ill and collapsed from proximity to the dead.

The opposition-run Health Department in Idlib Province, where the attack took place, said 69 people had died, providing a list of their names. The dead were still being identified, and some humanitarian groups said as many as 100 had died.

The government of Mr. Assad, who renounced chemical weapons nearly four years ago after a large chemical attack that American intelligence agencies concluded was carried out by his forces, denied that his military had been responsible, as he has done every time chemical munitions have been used in Syria.

A statement from the Syrian military accused insurgents of responsibility and said they had accused the army of using toxic weapons “every time they fail to achieve the goals of their sponsors.”

But only the Syrian military had the ability and the motive to carry out an aerial attack like the one that struck the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.

Russia offered another explanation. A spokesman for its Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said Syrian warplanes had struck an insurgent storehouse containing toxic substances to be used in chemical weapons.

Witnesses to the attack said it began before 7 a.m. Numerous photographs and graphic videos posted online by activists and residents showed children and older adults gasping and struggling to breathe, or lying motionless in the mud as rescue workers ripped off victims’ clothes and hosed them down. The bodies of at least 10 children lay lined up on the ground or under a quilt.

A few hours later, according to several witnesses, another airstrike hit one of the clinics treating victims, who had been sent to smaller hospitals and maternity wards because the area’s largest hospital was severely damaged by an airstrike two days earlier.

The scale and brazenness of the assault threatened to further subvert a nominal and often violated cease-fire that had taken hold in parts of the country since Mr. Assad’s forces retook the northern city of Aleppo in December with Russian help, emboldening the Syrian leader to think he could win the war.

The attack also seemed likely to dampen peace talks that have been overseen by the United Nations in Geneva and by Russia and Turkey in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Incredulous over the chemical assault, humanitarian groups demanded action from the United Nations Security Council, where partisan divides over who is to blame for the Syrian war have paralyzed its members almost since the conflict began in 2011.

On Tuesday night, Britain, France and the United States were pushing the Security Council to adopt a resolution that condemns the attack and orders the Syrian government to provide all flight logs, flight plans and names of commanders in charge of air operations, including those for Tuesday, to international investigators.

The draft resolution, negotiated among diplomats from the three countries on Tuesday, was later circulated to all 15 members of the Council. It could come up for a vote as early as Wednesday.

For Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly blamed what he has called President Barack Obama’s failures for the Syria crisis, the chemical weapons assault posed a potential policy dilemma and exposed some glaring contradictions in his own evolving positions on Syria.

The White House called the attack a “reprehensible” act against innocent people “that cannot be ignored by the civilized world.”

At the same time, Mr. Trump’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, denounced Mr. Obama for having failed to make good on his famous “red line” statement in 2012, suggesting he would intervene militarily in Syria if Mr. Assad used chemical weapons.

But in August 2013, Mr. Trump exhorted Mr. Obama not to intervene after a chemical weapons attack near Damascus that American intelligence attributed to the Syrian military killed more than 1,400 civilians, including hundreds of children, according to United States government estimates at the time. “President Obama, do not attack Syria,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter. “There is no upside and tremendous downside.”

Mr. Trump’s administration, which would like to shift the focus in Syria entirely to fighting the Islamic State, has in recent days described Mr. Assad’s hold on his office as a political reality — an assertion that has drawn strong condemnation from influential Republicans who say Mr. Assad must leave power.

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, who had said that Mr. Assad’s fate “will be decided by the Syrian people,” struck a sharply different tone on Tuesday, urging Mr. Assad’s allies Russia and Iran “to exercise their influence over the Syrian regime and to guarantee that this sort of horrific attack never happens again.”

Mr. Tillerson added that “Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths.”

Russia has insisted that it had no military role in the strike. But a State Department official who briefed reporters in Washington said Russian officials were trying to evade their responsibility because Russia and Iran were guarantors of the Assad government’s commitment to adhere to a cease-fire in the peace talks that the Kremlin had helped organize in Astana.

Rescue workers from the White Helmets civil defense organization said that many children were among the dead and wounded. Radi Saad, who writes incident reports for the group, said that volunteers had reached the site not knowing a chemical was present and that five of them had suffered from exposure to the substance.

While chlorine gas attacks have become almost routine in northern Syria, this one was different, medical workers and witnesses said. Chlorine attacks usually kill just a few people, often those trapped in an enclosed space, and the gas dissipates quickly.

This time, people collapsed outdoors, and in much larger numbers. The symptoms were different: They included the pinpoint pupils of victims that characterize nerve agents and other banned poisons. One doctor posted a video of a patient’s eye, showing the pupil reduced to a dot. Several people were sickened simply by coming into contact with victims.

The opposition minister of health, Mohamad Firas al-Jundi, said in a video that he had been in a field hospital at 7:30 a.m. when more than 100 people arrived wounded or sickened.

“The patients are in the corridors and on the floors of the operation rooms, the E.R.s and in the patient rooms,” he said. “I saw more than 10 deaths due to this attack.”

Symptoms included suffocation; fluid in the lungs, with foam coming from the mouth; unconsciousness; spasms; and paralysis, he said.

“It’s a shocking act,” he said. “The world knows and is aware of what’s happening in Syria, and we are ready to submit evidence to criminal laboratories to prove the use of these gases.”

A 14-year-old resident of the attacked town, Mariam Abu Khalil, said she had left home for her examination on the Quran — scheduled for early morning because fewer bombings were expected then — when the attack took place. On the way, she saw an aircraft drop a bomb on a one-story building a few dozen yards away. In a telephone interview Tuesday night, she described an explosion like a yellow mushroom cloud that stung her eyes. “It was like a winter fog,” she said.

Sheltering in her home nearby, she saw several residents arrive by car to help the wounded. “When they got out, they inhaled the gas and died,” she said.

The attack appeared to be the deadliest chemical attack in Syria since the August 2013 assault. Under threat of United States retaliation, Mr. Assad agreed to a Russian-American deal to eliminate his country’s chemical weapons program, which until that time it had denied having, and to join an international treaty banning chemical weapons.

But the operation took far longer than expected and raised questions about whether all the materials were accounted for. The head of the international monitoring body, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, complained in an internal report about misleading statements from Damascus and expressed concern about possible undeclared chemical weapons.

Since then, the organization, working with the United Nations, has found that the Syrian government used chlorine gas as a weapon three times in 2014 and 2015, violating the treaty. Rebel fighters, doctors and antigovernment activists say there have been numerous other chlorine attacks, including at least two in the past week, in one case killing a doctor as he worked.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has also accused the Islamic State of using banned mustard gas in Iraq and Syria. The area around Khan Sheikhoun is not held by the Islamic State, but by other insurgents: Qaeda-linked militants and a variety of other rebel groups.

A chemical weapons attack, if carried out by the government, would be a brazen statement of impunity, coming during a major international meeting in Brussels where officials are debating whether the European Union and other countries will contribute billions of dollars for reconstructing Syria if it is presided over by a government run by Mr. Assad.

Tommy Monk wrote:


But a dodgy video from ISIS terrorists is fine by dodgy dossier didge...!!!


What a twat!!!



Oh... and thanks Dibs!

Lord Foul wrote:Personally I cant give a monkeys zbout how many of his own assad kills......

So what are you suggesting didge...that to save a few thousand syrians.....we take the severe risk of igniting a war that  will kill millions upon million of people world wide. Plunge the world into a nuclear winter ant utterly wreck the environment for centuries.?....create a situation that given the unlikely scenariou of a few survivors,it will take more than a thousand years to reach the level of ancient rome?

Tommy Monk wrote:

Nothing to say about Peter Ford...!?


The war in Syria would have been over long ago, if UK/US and others had not been illegally supporting and supplying the terrorists over there...!!!

gelico wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:

Nothing to say about Peter Ford...!?


The war in Syria would have been over long ago, if UK/US and others had not been illegally supporting and supplying the terrorists over there...!!!

well, quite

Assad was already winning the war with ISIS.  He has absolutely no need nor desire to do this and so bring the wrath of the world down on him.  That makes no sense whatsoever

if they get rid of Assad who the hell do they think is going to replace him?


and as long as we have the obedient brain dead sheep lapping up and believing everything the MSM spew out the longer it takes to get to the truth.

Tommy Monk wrote:Didge... ISIS were supposed to be being hit by US/UK airstrikes before Syrian govt asked Russia for help... the problem with the earlier US/UK 'help', is that they weren't 'helping' against ISIS at all... they were (and still are) arming/supplying and supporting the ISIS terrorists!!!

Lord Foul wrote:Thats a bold prediction didge......"it wont end in a nukewar"
Really...you had better pray for your ass.....

I dont pray, nor will I ever need to

And....you folks slavering for war should be on the first boat load of consripts sent out..

Who said i was slavering for war?
Never did, but to stand up to Putin

Moreover watch you cry when putin cuts the gas supply to europe. It wont bother me greatly..I have wood burning appliances and can generate sufficient electricity for my own needs via solar / thernoelectric
Butvwatch the country go mad when the heating fails and the electric goes off

IMost of our gas comes from Norway and that is a better reason to do away with our dependency on Gas and more to more renewable energy sources. So basically you want to continue to appease Putin

Fuck that

Oh...btw...it doesnt need to be a conventional nuke strike....one well placed EMPweapon and YOU (and much of the rest of the country )  are as good as buried. You simply do not have the breadth of knowlege needed to survive.  YOU grew up in the wrong era. A degree in history or psychology aint going to cut the ice when you need proper shelter,pure water and food on a long term basis. With no power,and no coms, no effective services,the health service out of comission and the police paralysed, the country would fall apart just like syria etc,.

Lord Foul wrote:Youbdo realise didge that the two main players in this are not the most srable of people?

Didge wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:


But a dodgy video from ISIS terrorists is fine by dodgy dossier didge...!!!


What a twat!!!



Oh... and thanks Dibs!

What dodgy video you pathetic little weasel quisling?

Its you that is the twat.

I stand against Isis and Assad for their crimes and any other group that has committed war crimes in this conflict.

You though keep excusing Assad.

I gaave you the UN report, have you read it?

Of course not you idiot

Tommy Monk wrote:

Didge wrote:

What dodgy video you pathetic little weasel quisling?

Its you that is the twat.

I stand against Isis and Assad for their crimes and any other group that has committed war crimes in this conflict.

You though keep excusing Assad.

I gaave you the UN report, have you read it?

Of course not you idiot

What UN report is that...!?


Would that be the 'UNDOCS.ORG' link...?


Have you read it...?

Tommy Monk wrote:
I'll have a look tomorrow maybe, if I've got time...


But until then... why don't you post a couple of the most relevant bits, to support your claim...!?


This was the link wasn't it...?


http://undocs.org/A/68/663


?

Didge wrote:Oh and have either of these two useless idiots ever looked at the evidence?

No they have not, but then, they clearly buy into the Russian, Syrian, iranian propaganda machine, over their own country and the UN findings

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24130181

http://undocs.org/A/68/663

Maybe they can also explain why Russia halted any further investigations?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/18/syria-chemical-attacks-haley-russia-shameful-veto-un-inquiry

Maybe Lord and Lady Haw Haw can explain all that?

Night everyone

Tommy Monk wrote:UNDOCS LINK DOESN'T EXIST!!!!!!!



You twat!!!

Tommy Monk wrote:Google your link dodgy dossier didge...!!!


The UN report you said you read... DOESN'T EXIST!!!!!!



YOU ARE A LYING WEASEL AND A TWAT!!!

A/68/663 - E - undocs.

Tommy Monk wrote:
Doesn't work for me...


So what's your point?

gelico wrote:


so the UN report is very thorough

It is Syrian soldiers being targeted by rebel groups fighting them

and also civilians suffer from that

Didge wrote:

gelico wrote:


so the UN report is very thorough

It is Syrian soldiers being targeted by rebel groups fighting them

and also civilians suffer from that

So thourough, that you avoid the mass of evidence of Assad using chemicals against civillians.

You make out where there has also been suspected chemical attacks, on Assad troops, that only then civillians have suffered also off this.

gelico wrote:

Didge wrote:

So thourough, that you avoid the mass of evidence of Assad using chemicals against civillians.

You make out where there has also been suspected chemical attacks, on Assad troops, that only then civillians have suffered also off this.

Perhaps you could C&P some of this ''mass of evidence'' for me then didge

Admittedly, I was a bit tired so must have missed it

On at least 3 separate occasions the Syrian soldiers were attacked and suffered with nerve gas symptoms (obviously civilians get caught up in it as it is airbourne)

Are you saying Assad is paying the rebels to gas his own soldiers?

gelico wrote:

The substance concerned was the nerve agent sarin and the delivery system was ground-to-ground rockets. Note that the UN inspectors do not anywhere in the report explicitly lay the blame for carrying out the attack at the door of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Didge...


The Syrian rebels have captured significant stockpiles of government weaponry throughout this conflict and as the inspectors' report notes many of the munitions and their fragments had been moved or otherwise tampered with.


The substance concerned was the nerve agent sarin and the delivery system was ground-to-ground rockets. Note that the UN inspectors do not anywhere in the report explicitly lay the blame for carrying out the attack at the door of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Didge wrote:

gelico wrote:

The substance concerned was the nerve agent sarin and the delivery system was ground-to-ground rockets. Note that the UN inspectors do not anywhere in the report explicitly lay the blame for carrying out the attack at the door of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

So you do not think he has carried out any attacks?

They know Syrian troops under his command has, what they do not have is the evidence yet, that he ordered the strikes, which its obvious that he did.

gelico wrote:

Didge wrote:

So you do not think he has carried out any attacks?

They know Syrian troops under his command has, what they do not have is the evidence yet, that he ordered the strikes, which its obvious that he did.

Didge wrote:
So thourough, that you avoid the mass of evidence of Assad using chemicals against civillians.
so first there is a ''mass of evidence'' and now you say ''what they do not have is evidence yet''

Fool!!

Didge wrote:

gelico wrote:

The substance concerned was the nerve agent sarin and the delivery system was ground-to-ground rockets. Note that the UN inspectors do not anywhere in the report explicitly lay the blame for carrying out the attack at the door of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

So you do not think he has carried out any attacks?

They know Syrian troops under his command has, what they do not have is the evidence yet, that he ordered the strikes, which its obvious that he did.

In other words, its like saying whether or not Hitler order the final solution, which holocasut deniers often claim.

Which you now fall into that category Quisling

So what other disinformation are you going to post next Gelico?

You seem to have a terrible habbit of doing so and being the mouthpiece of the Alt-right.

Starting to think Andy is not so wrong about the Flap brigade bar Bob and Fred.

I mean it shows what a defender of him you are, when you again ignore that he has tortured, executed, starved ect civillians.

So what is your real motive to support Assad gelico?

Something to do with Islam?

Didge wrote:

gelico wrote:




Didge wrote:
So thourough, that you avoid the mass of evidence of Assad using chemicals against civillians.
so first there is a ''mass of evidence'' and now you say ''what they do not have is evidence yet''

Fool!!

I see the quisling is cherry picking again

Evidence yet to point to Assad commanding such an attack

Doh

Do you want me to post again what I said, or shall we continue with yet again you being dishonest?

We know there is plenty of evidence that proves Assad forces have used chemical weapons

Seriously crawl back up that alt right arsehole where you belong

gelico wrote:

Didge wrote:


I see the quisling is cherry picking again

Evidence yet to point to Assad commanding such an attack

Doh

Do you want me to post again what I said, or shall we continue with yet again you being dishonest?

We know there is plenty of evidence that proves Assad forces have used chemical weapons

Seriously crawl back up that alt right arsehole where you belong

so where is this evidence?  months of investigations

Didge wrote: Wow, did you read another report, or ignore all the evidence from the report I showed you?

you just said  ''what they dont have yet is the evidence''

Didge wrote: Yes that is what i said to point to assad himself ordering this

make up your sodding mind

Didge wrote: How about you make your mind up and stop spreading disinformation, like you did pathetically yesterday, misusing a kids play

fyi I have never at any point denied the fact that assad used sarin gas or any kind of poison.  I could well believe that he did.  I'm sure that he is no less ruthless or brutal than putin.

Didge wrote: So what the fuck are you arguing to deny he has?

but you keep contracting yourself.  You said there was a mass of evidence in the UN report and now you say they dont.

Didge wrote: There is a mass of evidence, which you wanted me to break down for you, because you are so blood lazy and stupid to read yourself

You are behaving like an emotional ninny just losing your temper because I dont automatically agree with this

Didge wrote: Maybe because I am fed up to the teeth off you being a lying twat spreading disinformation. As you did with Clinton (peado gang) and yesterday with that video. The fact you would exploit children that way, in a reenactment play was disgusting beyond a belief. At no point did you apologise, because you simple do not care that you post such tripe or what effect it has.

we cannot jump into a war until there is irrefutable evidence of this.  furthermore, what do you think the removal of assad will do?  we have been arming the rebels/jihadis/isis remember and supporting them against assad

this is all manipulated,,,,,,you do realise that, no?

Didge wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:

Didge...


The Syrian rebels have captured significant stockpiles of government weaponry throughout this conflict and as the inspectors' report notes many of the munitions and their fragments had been moved or otherwise tampered with.


The substance concerned was the nerve agent sarin and the delivery system was ground-to-ground rockets. Note that the UN inspectors do not anywhere in the report explicitly lay the blame for carrying out the attack at the door of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Tommy, yet again, we know the rebels have captured small quantities of chemical weapons.
You ignore the quantities used in many of the attacks on civillians and how they are delivered.
The latest being from the air and a barrel bomb.
As seen the surface to surface rockets (not ground, what ever the fuck that is) were seen to have been fired from the direction of Assad forces


Didge...


That UN report was years ago about 2013... when it clearly said this...

'...The Syrian rebels have captured significant stockpiles of government weaponry throughout this conflict...'

This is also well known to be including CHEMICAL WEAPONS!!!


Your so called 'latest attack by air as a barrel bomb' is nothing more than a fake claim from a video staged by ISIS terrorists for propaganda purposes!!!





That is as about as conclusive as it gets with the rockets

Again its not the job of the Un inspectors to lay blame





Read again the report

Tommy Monk wrote:

Didge wrote:

Tommy, yet again, we know the rebels have captured small quantities of chemical weapons.
You ignore the quantities used in many of the attacks on civillians and how they are delivered.
The latest being from the air and a barrel bomb.
As seen the surface to surface rockets (not ground, what ever the fuck that is) were seen to have been fired from the direction of Assad forces


Didge...


That UN report was years ago about 2013... when it clearly said this...

'...The Syrian rebels have captured significant stockpiles of government weaponry throughout this conflict...'

This is also well known to be including CHEMICAL WEAPONS!!!


Your so called 'latest attack by air as a barrel bomb' is nothing more than a fake claim from a video staged by ISIS terrorists for propaganda purposes!!!


 


That is as about as conclusive as it gets with the rockets

Again its not the job of the Un inspectors to lay blame





Read again the report

I read the 2013 report again...


It said this...


"The substance concerned was the nerve agent sarin and the delivery system was ground-to-ground rockets. Note that the UN inspectors do not anywhere in the report explicitly lay the blame for carrying out the attack at the door of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad."

Didge wrote:Okay Gelico

I have given you a chance to apologise for posting a video spreading false information

I hoped you would recognise you did and apologise

Do you want me to post this on the fake news thread and embarress you further ( again I have no wish to see any video banned)? Though I will to prove further how you posted a video that lied.

I would rather you show some integrity and admit you posted that video without checking and more so, simple believeing the bullshit claim?

Its up to you. Either you still believe the bullshit you posted or you recognise you were wrong and admit it was stupid of you to post something, you did not fact find?

Over to you and I hope you prove me wrong and admit you did fuck up. That will restore my faith in you