By Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack
Recent news of a chemical weapons attack in Syria smacks of desperation. The question comes down to who is most desperate right now, the Assad regime or the Muslim Brotherhood rebels? Consider that since June, Assad’s forces have been winning. According to a CBS News report from last month, victories for the rebels had become “increasingly rare” and that the Muslim Brotherhood-backed opposition fighters were sustaining “some of their heaviest losses” near Damascus.
Saudi Chemicals in hands of Syrian Rebels
The New York Times echoed this sentiment, even saying that before gaining the upper hand, concerns were that Assad would use chemical weapons; he did not.
In fact, even before Assad’s forces gained the momentum, a UN official reportedly found evidence of rebels using chemical weapons but no evidence Assad’s regime did. This, from a Washington Times article by Shaun Waterman dated May 6, 2013:
Testimony from victims strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin nerve gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior U.N. diplomat said Monday.
Carla del Ponte, a member of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels seeking to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent.
But she said her panel had not yet seen any evidence of Syrian government forces using chemical weapons, according to the BBC, but she added that more investigation was needed. {emphasis ours}
Today, while the rebels are more desperate than they were at the time of that article, evidence of rebels using chemical weapons is available; evidence Assad’s regime has used them is not.
Waterman wrote…
Rebel Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay Almokdad denied that rebels had use chemical weapons.
That doesn’t square with a video uploaded on August 23, 2013, in which Free Syrian operatives threatened to launch chemical weapons:
A day later, on August 24th, a video was uploaded and featured on facebook that purports to show Syrian rebels loading what very well may be a rocket armed with some sort of chemical agent. The tip of the rocket is armed with a light blue tank or canister that very well contains a nerve agent. At the end of this video, two separate launches of these rockets can be seen:
This video from a Syrian TV news report claims to show chemicals (some of labels on these chemicals are in English) and weapons seized by the Syrian government in the rebel stronghold of Jobar. Note at the :10 mark a label that reads:
“Saudi Factory for Chlorine and Alkalies”
In this video, two Syrian rebels (Muslim Brotherhood gang) can be heard coordinating an attack on a nearby building. As smoke billows a short distance from the building, a rebel on the ground can be heard directing someone – presumably at the source of the launch – to change his direction. At that point, the rebel from the launch point can be heard talking about using sarin gas next:
In this video of a Russia Today news report originally broadcast on or before June 16, 2013, testimony from a United Nations panel is reported to demonstrate that rebel groups – not the Assad regime – was responsible for the use of chemical weapons in general, Sarin gas in particular, which backs up the claims in the previous video. Those who attempt to discredit the report below because it is from Russia Today should have difficulty doing so when factoring in rebels above talking about using sarin gas:
It’s significant to consider that the rebels were reportedly using chemical weapons at a time when Assad was more desperate than he is now. Again, why would Assad use chemical weapons now and not then? Who is more desperate at this point in the conflict?
The answer is, the Muslim Brotherhood rebels, who have no problem killing themselves (or their own) if the cause of Islam is moved forward.
Even CNN International, which has typically been quick to report favorably for the Muslim Brotherhood rebels, is hedging its bets lately, when it comes to who is responsible for the attack. Here is a video report from Frederik Pleitgen in which he leaves the possibility open that the rebels may have perpetrated or staged the attack:
Back in March, we chronicled evidence of chemical weapons being used by the Syrian rebels. Unfortunately, since google terminated Theodore’s YouTube account, most of the videos in that post have been deleted and have been more than a little difficult to find.
Running concurrent with the tide that turned in Assad’s favor a few months ago was another defeat for the Muslim Brotherhood – in Egypt. That defeat has been taking place ever since Mohammed Mursi was ousted on July 3rd. So why would Assad use chemical weapons now and not months ago, when his situation was much more precarious?
As the Associated Press was reporting that the U.S. is moving ships closer to Syria in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack, Reuters reported that Assad’s army found chemical weapons in tunnels that had been used by the rebels, according to Syrian state television.
Oxford University historian Mark Almond granted Russia Today an interview and explained both why western nations are so willing to blame Assad and why rebels would have a motive to murder their own people. In response to a question about why the U.S., the U.K., and France appear so eager to blame Assad, Almond said:
“Western governments… want to say ‘Gotcha’. They have been demanding the fall of Assad for more than two-and-a-half years now and it has become increasingly frustrating that his regime has shown much more resilience than they had expected, despite the resources that they and the Gulf Kingdoms have thrown into the war on the other side.
It is also like a distraction from the embarrassment of Egypt, where we see the European and the US governments basically using weasel words to avoid any kind of condemnation of a massacre in the streets of Cairo. So there are both the specifics of Syria and the context of what is going on elsewhere in the Arab world, especially in Egypt.”
Almond gives a very interesting answer to the question about why the rebels would intentionally gas their own people:
“We do have some very radical groups who would no doubt say, as they have when they have been challenged about using suicide bombers, killing innocent people, that God will recognize his own when the dead die, that he will save for heaven the justified victims and just send to hell the wicked supporters of Assad. So it is not impossible that somebody has staged this.
Consider that a man many of the Syrian rebels show the utmost of reverence for is the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. When writing about a Muslim tactic known as Muruna, Qaradawi expressed when it is acceptable for Muslims to kill fellow Muslims:
“…killing Muslims whom the unbelievers use as shields… leaving these unbelievers is a danger to the Muslims, so it is permissible to kill these unbelievers even if Muslims are killed with them in the process.” – The Case FOR Islamophobia, p. 56
Of course, if the rebels are desperate enough, Muruna could sanction the murder of their own people if it meant bearing false witness and a blood libel that would engage external forces that want Assad removed. As things stand today, the rebels are more desperate than is the Assad regime.
Specific examples include the staged death of twelve year-old Muhammad Al-Dura by Palestinians. Whether the child was used as a prop in a Palestinian blood-libel or was actually killed, he was clearly put in danger by Palestinians who shot at him as the news cameras rolled for a false report that aired on France 2. They wanted to blame the Israelis.
Earlier this month in Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood supporters were caught behaving as victims of oppression at the hands of the military. They might have gotten away with it if nothing but still shots were taken. Unfortunately for these miscreants, video was recorded that revealed a staged, mass display of despicable behavior.
Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood rebels would never get away with launching chemical weapons and taking credit for it. They’d have to do so while blaming Assad. It’s straight out of the Nazi playbook and a violation of two major commandments – Thou shalt not murder and thou shalt not bear false witness. However, the Muslim Brotherhood, as usual, provides more evil spin. It bears false witness while committing murder in order to push an agenda.
Lying, bearing false witness, blood libel, and murder.
Yeah, that smells like the Brotherhood.
**UPDATE at 8:40am EST on August 31, 2013**
Associated Press reporter Dale Gavlak reports in MintPress news that firsthand accounts indicate that the Chemical weapons attack was the result of the rebels’ mishandling of them. According to Gavlak, the weapons came from Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar bin Sultan and were given to rebels who did not know what the weapons were or how to store them, nor were they trained how to use them. If these accounts are correct, the Obama administration – along with more than a handful of Republican congressmen – may be complicit in a blood libel.
**UPDATE at 4:25pm EST on September 3, 2013**
An explosive article by Yossef Bodansky was published on September 1st implies that it is possible – or even likely – based on “a growing volume of new evidence” that the August 21st Chemical attack was carried out by the rebels against themselves in order to push an agenda that would involve getting the U.S. to attack Assad. Worse than this, however, is that Bodansky makes the case for the likelihood that the Obama administration knew about the attack in advance. While Bodansky’s findings differ from those of Gavlak, both seem to reach the conclusion that the rebels were the ones responsible for the attack.
**UPDATE at 10:47am EST on September 12, 2013**
One of two European journalists who were held hostage by Syrian rebel kidnappers for five months has gone on record as saying he overheard his captors – in English – discuss using Chemical weapons in order to frame Bashar al-Assad. Pierre Piccinin claims that while in captivity, a phone conversation via Skype took place in which he heard these claims. While the other hostage – Domenico Quirico – could not confirm the conversation, he has stated that he no longer supports the rebels and that they are Islamist fanatics. It’s quite difficult to dismiss the firsthand testimony of a hostage. Piccinin’s claims bolster the claims of Bodansky in the previous update. Here is the interview with Piccinin:
**UPDATE at 4:32pm EST on September 21, 2013**
A Syrian blogger has posted a video purportedly shot from the cell phone of a rebel terrorist who has since been killed. The video was shot on August 21st – the date of the Chemical weapons attack – and it was shot near where the attack took place, in Ghouta. In the video, rebels can be seen wearing gas masks and firing weapons while shouting, “Allahu Akhbar”. Evidence continues to mount that Syria’s rebels were responsible for the August 21st attack.
**UPDATED at 4:33pm EST on December 9, 2013**
None other than left-wing Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh makes the case in a rather comprehensive report, that the Obama administration intentionally misled and manipulated intelligence to fit the narrative that Assad was responsible for the Chemical weapons attack. A central component to Hersh’s charges is that the administration led others to believe that it had monitored Assad’s activities prior to the attack. Evidence suggests the administration knew as much as everyone else did and didn’t seize on the Sarin gas narrative until days after the attack. Hersh compared what Obama did with Syria to what Lyndon Johnson did with the Gulf of Tonkin, which involved altering timelines to fit an agenda. Again, that someone like Hersh – who writes for the New Yorker, broke the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and thinks Gitmo should be closed – is what makes this news.
**UPDATED at 7:51pm EST on January 26, 2014**
Well, it took a while but none other than the left-leaning McClatchy news service has published an article that further discredits the likes of Senator John McCain (RINO-AZ) and any other Obama administration sycophant. As it turns out, a report published by Richard Lloyd, a former U.N. weapons inspector, and Theodore Postol, a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology make the case that the chemical weapon that was used in the attack had a range that was less than the distance between Assad’s weapons and where the rocket landed. Try again, McCain, you wicked apparatchik.
**UPDATED at 8:22am EST on April 8, 2014**
Seymour Hersh has done it again (see update on December 9, 2013 above). In a report that is as explosive as it is exhaustive, the perpetrators of the August 2013 attack in Syria appear to be the forces that work for Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In his report, Hersh quotes heavily from a ‘former intelligence official’ who maintains rather adamantly that Erdogan was increasingly frustrated with the lack of success against Assad and that a chemical weapons attack was facilitated at the behest of high ranking officials inside the Erdogan administration, which desperately wanted U.S. air power to finish off the Assad regime.