Rebels carries out chemical attack: Russia

Homemade chemical ammunition used in March attack in Syria: Russia

Russia says that home-made ammunition was used in a chemical attack carried out in Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo in March, which killed over two dozen people.

Press TV,

5 September, 2013

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The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, “The used round of ammunition was a homemade item on the basis of rockets made in Syria’s north by the so-called Bashair Al-Nasr brigade.”

Moscow made the statement based on conclusions reached by the Russian experts who carried out an investigation into the March 19 chemical attack, which reportedly left 26 Syrian civilians and soldiers dead and nearly 100 others affected.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the chemical weapons used in the attack were not made by the Syrian army.

The findings by the Russian experts come amid a rising threat of war against Syria over the unsubstantiated accusation that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons.

The rhetoric of war against Syria first gained momentum on August 21, when the militants operating inside the Middle Eastern country and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition claimed that over a thousand people had been killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar.

The Syrian government categorically rejected the accusation and said the militants had conducted the attack to draw in foreign military intervention.

Nevertheless, a number of Western countries, including the United States, France, and Britain, quickly started campaigning for war.

The talk of war reached a peak on Tuesday, August 27, when media outlets reported US plans for likely surgical attacks.

Later, however, domestic and international calls against a potential war forced some of the warmongering countries to temporarily tone down their stances.

On August 29, the British parliament voted against participation by Britain, the United States’ closest ally, in any potential military intervention in Syria under the current circumstances.

On Friday, August 30, NATO also distanced itself from participating in any military intervention in Syria, with the chief of the Western military coalition, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, saying he did not “foresee any NATO role” in a war on Syria.

However, Washington remained defiant, saying that it is willing to go ahead with its plans for a strike on Syria without the approval of the United Nations or even the support of its allies. Under mounting pressure though, US President Barack Obama said on Saturday, August 31 that his administration will first seek authorization from the Congress.

Although the American legislators were highly skeptical of any US war on Syria at first, criticizing a draft resolution sent to them by the Obama administration, they now seem on their way to approving White House plans for a war.

The US lawmakers drafted a bipartisan measure on Wednesday, September 4 - to be voted on in the two chambers of the US Congress later - imposing a 90-day deadline for US military intervention but banning the “deployment of any US troops on the ground” in Syria.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has said it also plans to use “Air Force bombers” in addition to destroyers armed with cruise missiles, which were the primary means of launching an attack on Syria.

All of this comes while the team of UN inspectors, who recently visited Syria to probe the sites of chemical attacks, has yet to release the findings of its inspection.

The UN, Iran, Russia, and China have warned against war. 

Russia releases key findings on chemical attack near Aleppo indicating similarity with rebel-made weapons

Probes from Khan al-Assal show chemicals used in the March 19 attack did not belong to standard Syrian army ammunition, and that the shell carrying the substance was similar to those made by a rebel fighter group, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated.

RT

5 September, 2013

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A statement released by the ministry on Wednesday particularly drew attention to the “massive stove-piping of various information aimed at placing the responsibility for the alleged chemical weapons use in Syria on Damascus, even though the results of the UN investigation have not yet been revealed.” 

By such means “the way is being paved for military action” against Damascus, the ministry pointed out. 

But the samples taken at the site of the March 19 attack and analyzed by Russian experts indicate that a projectile carrying the deadly nerve agent sarin was most likely fired at Khan al-Assal by the rebels, the ministry statement suggests, outlining the 100-page report handed over to the UN by Russia. 

The key points of the report have been given as follows: 

• the shell used in the incident “does not belong to the standard ammunition of the Syrian army and was crudely according to type and parameters of the rocket-propelled unguided missiles manufactured in the north of Syria by the so-called Bashair al-Nasr brigade”;

• RDX, which is also known as hexogen or cyclonite, was used as the bursting charge for the shell, and it is “not used in standard chemical munitions”;

• soil and shell samples contain “the non-industrially synthesized nerve agent sarin and diisopropylfluorophosphate,” which was “used by Western states for producing chemical weapons during World War II.” 

The findings of the report are “extremely specific,” as they mostly consist of scientific and technical data from probes’ analysis, the ministry stressed, adding that this data can “substantially aid” the UN investigation of the incident.

While focusing on the Khan al-Assal attack on March 19, in which at least 26 civilians and Syrian army soldiers were killed, and 86 more were injured, the Russian Foreign Ministry also criticized the “flawed selective approach” of certain states in reporting the recent incidents of alleged chemical weapons use in August.

The hype around the alleged attack on the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta showed “apparent attempts to cast a veil over the incidents of gas poisoning of Syrian army soldiers on August 22, 24 and 25,” the ministry said, adding that all the respective evidence was handed to the UN by Syria.

The condition of the soldiers who, according to Damascus, suffered poisoning after discovering tanks with traces of sarin, has been examined and documented by the UN inspectors, the ministry pointed out, adding that “any objective investigation of the August 21 incident in eastern Ghouta is impossible without the consideration of all these facts.” 

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said the UN investigators are set to return to Syria to investigate several other cases of alleged chemical weapons use, including the March 19 incident in Khan al-Assal.