Russia Claims to Have Located Witnesses to Staged ‘Chemical’ Event in Douma

Russia’s Tass news agency claimed early on April 13th, that Russian investigators have located and spoken with persons in the Syrian city of Douma who witnessed the staging of the videos that the U.S-and-UK-financed White Helmets group supplied, and which videos the U.S., French and UK Governments use to justify their planned invasion of Syria.

Karen Pierce: UK's ambassador, and the dreadful equivalent of the repugnant lying Nikki Haley. Perfect shill for the lying Theresa May and the rest of that gang. She was naturally not going to consider any evidence, since the fix is in and these countries—the UK, France and the US—for deranged reasons, are intent on war.

According to Tass’s report, two medical personnel who were on duty on 7 April when the alleged patients were being rushed into the emergency room, say that White Helmets personnel accompanied the alleged victims, and filmed them while bringing them in. According to Tass, “When the patients were receiving first aid, unidentified people burst into the hospital, some were holding video cameras. These people started shouting, fanning hysteria. They carried hose and douched all present with water crying out that all of them had been exposed to poisonous agents.”

That is presumably describing the scene at 1:34 in the White Helmets video that was used by Qatari Government TV, Al Jazeera, on April 8th, in their report on the incident. Qatar’s royal family, the Thanis, are the main funders of the Muslim Brotherhood and have long called for the overthrow of Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, whose Government is strongly opposed to basing government upon any religious laws; Syria’s Government is founded strictly upon a secular Constitution instead. Though the Thanis, who own Qatar, are less fundamentalist than the Sauds, who own Saudi Arabia, both royal families have urged the U.S. and its other allies to overthrow the Assad government, and the White Helmets have been an important part of that allied effort.

Here is one of the White Helmets’ videos that were posted to youtube on April 7th, and the corpses that are shown at 1:30 in the basement of the bombed building appear to have been dragged there for the video to be taken of them there, supposedly in the basement of this collapsed building, which doesn’t look collapsed at all. However, NBC’s Richard Engel on April 13th reported that there had been a chlorine gas attack, and also in that day’s installment of the NBC Nightly News, on 13 April 2018, NBC said (0:55) “now the World Health Organization all say chemical weapons were used.” However, the latest WHO report on that matter was dated April 11th, and it made no such statement. Then, the next day, on April 12th, a Russian news agency wrote directly asking WHO’s position on the matter, and published thisalleged response:

The World Health Organization (WHO) does not confirm any “chemical event”, as the WHO press-service responded to the Rossa Primavera News Agency’s request.

“WHO has not confirmed that a chemical event has taken place in Douma”, the press-service in Geneva informs.

The Tass report says that the White Helmets staged the event because “London” had told them that the Assad Government was planning to bomb in Douma during 3-6 April and that the ‘rebels’ should then film their people bringing in victims of a chemical attack there, so as to provide a basis for subsequent bombing by the UK, U.S., and allies, as an alleged humanitarian response.

The Tass account suggests but does not state that Russia’s Government has located also other witnesses, but ones who are not willing to become publicly identified — that only two are willing to be publicly identified if necessary in order to prevent an invasion.

The Tass account also implies that Russia has in its posession communications from the UK Government to the White Helmets, and will publish these communications unless the UK will back down without directly invading Syria.

No indication was given in the Tass report, to the effect that Russia has similarly acquired evidence against the U.S. Government in this matter.

If the UK Government denies the Russian allegations regarding this, then the burden of proof will be upon either the Russians or the Syrians to make public whatever evidence they have acquired backing up the Russian claims. However, the UK and its allies haven’t, at least after the year 2000, publicly released any evidence prior to invading on the basis of secret information that they alleged to possess. Only decades later has anything substantial been made public, and only with crucial passages blacked-out, etc.; so, if Russia behaves the same way, then they will be able to claim that they are merely following what has by now become standard Western practice. Conceivably, World War III could be waged on that basis.

However, later in the day on April 13th, the names of the two willing witnesses were released, as reported by Russian Television (see also addendum):

The UK rejected the accusations, with British UN Ambassador Karen Pierce calling them “grotesque,” “a blatant lie” and “the worst piece of fake news we’ve yet seen from the Russian propaganda machine.”

One of the interviews published by the ministry showed a man who said his name was Halil Ajij, and who said he was a medical student working at Douma’s only operational hospital. This is how he described the origin of the footage:

“On April 8, a bomb hit a building. The upper floors were damaged and a fire broke at the lower floors. Victims of that bombing were brought to us. People from the upper floors had smoke poisoning. We treated them, based on their suffocation.”

Ajij said that a man unknown to him came and said there was a chemical attack and panic ensued. “Relatives of the victims started dousing each other with water. Other people, who didn’t seem to have medical training, started administering anti-asthma medicine to children. We didn’t see any patient with symptoms of a chemical weapons poisoning,” he said.

The first photos claiming to show the aftermath of the alleged chemical attack on April 7 were published online on the same day, and featured the bodies of many people, including children, some with foam around their mouths and noses. Footage from the hospital was released on Sunday, with the sources behind it claiming that it had been shot on Saturday.

[Major-General Igor] Konashenkov said Russia hoped that international monitors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is due to investigate the circumstances of the incident, will help establish the truth.

The OPCW investigators are due to arrive in Douma on Saturday, April 14th. If the planned invasion does not occur prior to their arrival, then the likelihood is that any such invasion will be postponed until after their report of findings is issued.

One may reasonably expect that, if the investigators are allowed by the U.S., UK, and allies, to complete their work (the U.N.’s WMD investigators were told on 17 March 2003 to abandon their work and leave Iraq so that they wouldn’t die in Bush-Blair’s invasion which occurred three days later), then extensive secret negotiations will be occurring behind the scenes, in order to determine whether a public resolution of this matter will be able to reached that does not entail the alleged humanitarian invasion. 

Addendum

Syria 'chemical attack' staged to provoke US airstrike, London pushed perpetrators – Russian MoD

During a briefing on Friday, the ministry showed interviews with two people, who, it said, are medical professionals working in the only hospital operating in Douma, a town near the Syrian capital, Damascus.

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In the interviews released to the media, the two men reported how footage was shot of people dousing each other with water and treating children, which was claimed to show the aftermath of the April 7 chemical weapons attack. The patients shown in the video suffered from smoke poisoning and the water was poured on them by their relatives after a false claim that chemical weapons were used, the ministry said.

“Please, notice. These people do not hide their names. These are not some faceless claims on the social media by anonymous activists. They took part in taking that footage,” said ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov.

“The Russian Defense Ministry also has evidence that Britain had a direct involvement in arranging this provocation in Eastern Ghouta,” the general added, referring to the neighborhood of which Douma is part. “We know for certain that between April 3 and April 6 the so-called White Helmets were seriously pressured from London to speed up the provocation that they were preparing.”

According to Konashenkov, the group, which was a primary source of photos and footage of the purported chemical attack, was informed of a large-scale artillery attack on Damascus planned by the Islamist group Army of Islam, which controlled Douma at the time. The White Helmets were ordered to arrange the provocation after retaliatory strikes by the Syrian government forces, which the shelling was certain to lead to, he said.

The UK rejected the accusations, with British UN Ambassador Karen Pierce calling them “grotesque,” “a blatant lie” and “the worst piece of fake news we've yet seen from the Russian propaganda machine.”

One of the interviews published by the ministry showed a man who said his name was Halil Ajij, and who said he was a medical student working at Douma’s only operational hospital. This is how he described the origin of the footage:

“On April 8, a bomb hit a building. The upper floors were damaged and a fire broke at the lower floors. Victims of that bombing were brought to us. People from the upper floors had smoke poisoning. We treated them, based on their suffocation."

Ajij said that a man unknown to him came and said there was a chemical attack and panic ensued. “Relatives of the victims started dousing each other with water. Other people, who didn’t seem to have medical training, started administering anti-asthma medicine to children. We didn’t see any patient with symptoms of a chemical weapons poisoning,” he said.

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‘They can go anywhere they want in Douma’: OPCW team arrives in Syria to investigate alleged attack

The first photos claiming to show the aftermath of the alleged chemical attack on April 7 were published online on the same day, and featured the bodies of many people, including children, some with foam around their mouths and noses. Footage from the hospital was released on Sunday, with the sources behind it claiming that it had been shot on Saturday.

Konashenkov said Russia hoped that international monitors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is due to investigate the circumstances of the incident, will help establish the truth. He added Eastern Ghouta is currently trying to return to peaceful life after being liberated from militant groups by Syrian government forces. He called on other nations and international organizations to provide humanitarian aid, which is badly needed in the area. Russia is already supplying food, medicine, building materials and other essential supplies to the neighborhood, he said.

Residents of the neighborhood, who previously fled violence, are returning to their homes now that the area is relatively safe, the Russian official said. The latest reports from the ground say about 63,000 people have returned, which is over half of the displaced residents, he added.

The reported chemical weapons attack escalated tensions over Syria, just as Damascus was about to seize full control of Eastern Ghouta. The US and allies such as the UK and France threatened military action in response to what they claim is an atrocity committed by the Syrian government. Russia insists the incident was staged and said it reserves the right to counter any attack on Syria.

RT spoke about the Russian claims with Lord Alan West, a retired officer of the British Royal Navy. He said he had strong reservations about taking allegations against Damascus at face value, because it didn’t make much military sense.

“It seems to be utterly ludicrous for the military that is in the process of taking over an area to go and do something with chemical weapons, which will draw the wrath of the larger enemy down upon them,” he said. “If I was advising the opponents of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, I would be delighted to kill a few people there. Let’s face it, [the insurgents] don’t care if they kill women and children.”

“I am not willing to accept tweets. We need to see incontrovertible truth about what has happened there and make a decision on that basis,” he added.