Konflikten i Syrien

Nonetheless, the report constituted the first confirmation from the Hague-based organization, which monitors the Chemical Weapons Convention that most nations of the world, including Syria, have signed.

“We have the highest confidence in the O.P.C.W. report, which confirms what we already knew: chemical weapons were used against the Syrian people,” Ms. Haley said.

The report will be forwarded to a joint commission of the organization and the United Nations, she said, “to independently identify who was responsible for this horrific attack.” The joint commission was created by the Security Council to determine which combatants have been using chemical weapons in Syria.

Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn’t hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria’s infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack.

A local source in Eastern Syria reported that the ISIL terrorist group has concentrated its military equipment in the town of Albu Kamal after the army troops' advances from Eastern Homs towards Deir Ezzur.
The source in al-Mayadeen region said that the army's ground and aerial operations against ISIL and pro-government forces' advances from Eastern Homs towards Deir Ezzur have caused ISIL to transfer its heavy military equipment, tanks and artillery to the town of Albu Kamal from al-Hazam al-Akhzar that are on the outskirts of th same town.

The source further added that the ISIL has transferred its tanks to Albu Kamal and has started to build more bunkers and fortify basements across the town.

/.../The intelligence that prompted the administration’s warning to Syria this week was "far from conclusive," said a U.S. official familiar with it. "It did not come close to saying that a chemical weapons attack was coming," the official said.

/.../His story has spawned two clear “spoiler” responses from those desperate to uphold the official narrative. Hersh’s revelations may have been entirely uninteresting to the western media, but strangely they have sent Washington into crisis mode. Of course, no US official has addressed Hersh’s investigation directly, which might have drawn attention to it and forced western media to reference it. Instead Washington has sought to deflect attention from Hersh’s alternative narrative and shore up the official one through misdirection. That alone should raise the alarm that we are being manipulated, not informed.
/.../
And then on Friday, the second spoiler emerged. Two unnamed diplomats “confirmed” that a report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had found that some of the victims from Khan Sheikhoun showed signs of poisoning by sarin or sarin-like substances.

There are obvious reasons to be mightily suspicious of these stories. The findings of the OPCW were already known and had been discussed for some time – there was absolutely nothing newsworthy about them.

There are also well-known problems with the findings. There was no “chain of custody” – neutral oversight – of the bodies that were presented to the organisation in Turkey, as Scott Ritter, a former weapons inspector in Iraq, has noted. Any number of interested parties could have contaminated the bodies before they reached the OPCW. For that reason, the OPCW has not concluded that the Assad regime was responsible for the traces of sarin. In the world of real news, only such a finding – that Assad was responsible – should have made the OPCW report interesting again to the media.

Damascus, SANA – The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said that the report issued by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) regarding the Khan Sheikhoun incident includes a fabricated narrative with no credibility at all and which cannot be accepted because it is removed from logic, demanding that the OPCW make reports that are fair, credible, and not subject to the pressure exerted by states and sides that seek to block access to the truth.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Ministry said that the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW issued on 29/06/2017 a misleading report featuring the findings of a fact finding committee regarding the Khan Sheikhoun incident, and it seems that the main purpose of forming such committees is to hide facts, and that these committees’ reports are written and prepared in advance by certain circles that are hostile to Syria.

The Ministry said that the fact that the fact-finding committees relied on testimonies of terrorists located in Turkey shows the absence of the minimum amount of truth, as these witnesses brought to Turkey from Khan Sheikhoun are false witnesses that follow the instructors of those who paid them to testify.

The statement said that the same applies to the so-called “White Helmets” who are proven by documented facts to be tools for Jabhat al-Nusra and other terror organization and the American and British intelligence agencies, adding that the revealed sources cited by reports are ones controlled by Western intelligence and armed opposition groups that are controlled by the US, Britain, and other Western states, wondering how those who made the report can claim that the information they included has the bare minimum of what makes up an honest, reliable, and transparent investigation.

The Ministry said that the Syrian government has affirmed that it does not possess any chemical weapons immediately after the terrorists committed the crime in Khan Sheikhoun, and it condemned the use of toxic chemicals regardless of the location and circumstances and the side they are used against, as Syria believes that the use of such weapons is immortal and unjustifiable.

The statement noted that Syria expressed to cooperate fully with the Technical Secretariat so that the fact-finding committee can go to Khan Sheikhoun to investigate the incident on the ground, but the Secretariat said that it is unable to access the site because armed terrorist groups refused them access, which is further proof of the lack of professionalism by the fact-finding mission.

The Ministry added that Syria had informed the fact-finding mission when it visited Damascus that it will put a private plane at its disposal to visit al-Shuairat airport, but the OPCW also declined this invitation, pointing out that the representatives of Syria, Russia, and Iran had insisted during the OPCW Executive Council meeting on 29/06/2017 on sending a mission to al-Shuairat airport, but the US and its Western allies blocked this initiative to hide the truth about the attack on this airport from which Syrian warplanes take off to fight ISIS.
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The Ministry went on to say that the Syrian Arab Republic reiterates its rejection of such reports that are filled with misdirection and falsification of facts and of the over American threats that constitute attempts to invest in terrorism and the chemical weapons that are sent to terrorists by the states that sponsor them such as the UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and others.