Syria

[blindpig]

Caught in a lie, US & allies bomb Syria the night before international inspectors arrive
Eva Bartlett

Eva Bartlett is a freelance journalist and rights activist with extensive experience in the Gaza Strip and Syria. Her writings can be found on her blog, In Gaza.

Published time: 15 Apr, 2018 04:33

Caught in a lie, US & allies bomb Syria the night before international inspectors arrive



A Syrian firefighter inside the destroyed Scientific Research Center in Damascus, Syria April 14, 2018 © Omar Sanadiki / Reuters

The US, Britain and France trampled international law to launch missiles against Syria, claiming to have “evidence” of the government’s use of chemical weapons. That evidence is based on terrorist lies.
After a week of outrageous tweets and proclamations by POTUS Trump, which included continued accusations that Syria’s president ordered a chemical weapons attack on civilians in Douma, east of Damascus, with Trump using grotesque and juvenile terminology, such as “animal Assad,” the very evening before chemical weapons inspectors of the OPCW were to visit Douma, America and allies launched illegal bombings against Syria. The illegal bombings included 103 missiles, 71 of which Russia states were intercepted.

For the past week, we were told that the US had ‘evidence’ and the UK had ‘evidence’ that Syria had used chemicals. The ‘evidence’ largely relied on video clips and photos shared on social media, provided by the Western-funded White Helmets (that “rescuer” group that somehow only operates in Al-Qaeda and co-terrorist occupied areas and participates in torture and executions), as well as by Yaser al-Doumani, a man whose allegiance to Jaysh al-Islam is clear from his own Facebook posts, for example of former Jaysh al-Islam leader, Zahran Alloush.

This, we were told, was ‘evidence.’ This and the words of the highly partial, USAID-funded, US State Department allied Syrian American Medical Society, which, like Al-Qaeda’s rescuers, only supports doctors in terrorist-occupied areas.

On April 12, even US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee that the US government does not have any evidence that sarin or chlorine was used, that he was still looking for evidence.

President Trump, instead of waiting for an investigation to confirm his ‘evidence,’ chose the very night before this investigative team would arrive in Syria to inspect the allegations, to bomb Syria. The timing of the attacks is more than just a little timely. And the bombings were illegal.

General Mattis tried to dance around the legality, stating, “the president has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to use military force overseas to defend important United States national interests.”

But he is wrong, this does not permit the US to illegally bomb a sovereign nation, and he knows it. So does Russia. In a statement on April 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the attacks as illegal, noting:

“Without the sanction of the Security Council of the United Nations, in violation of the UN Charter, norms and principles of international law, an act of aggression against a sovereign state that is at the forefront of the fight against terrorism has been committed.”

What if chemicals had been at targeted locations?
In the same Pentagon briefing, General Joseph Dunford specified the US and allies’ targets in Syria, alleging they were “specifically associated with the Syrian regime's chemical weapons program.” One target, at which 76 missiles were fired, was the Barzeh scientific research centre in heavily-populated Damascus itself, which Dunford claimed was involved in the “development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology.”

This ‘target’ is in the middle of a densely-inhabited area of Damascus. According to Damascus resident Dr. (of business and economy) Mudar Barakat, who knows the area in question, “the establishment consists of a number of buildings. One of them is a teaching institute. They are very close to the homes of the people around.”

Of the strikes, Dunford claimed they “inflicted maximum damage, without unnecessary risk to innocent civilians.”

If one believed the claims to be accurate, would bombing them really save Syrian lives, or to the contrary cause mass deaths? Where is the logic in bombing facilities believed to contain hazardous, toxic chemicals in or near densely populated areas?

Regarding the actual nature of the buildings bombed, Syrian media, SANA, describes the Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industries Research Institute as developing “centered on preparing the chemical compositions for cancer drugs.” The destruction of this institute is particularly bitter, as, under the criminal western sanctions, cancer medicines sales to Syria are prohibited.

Interviews with one of its employees, Said Said, corroborate SANA’s description of the facility making cancer treatment and other medicinal components. One article includes Said’s logical point: “If there were chemical weapons, we would not be able to stand here. I've been here since 5:30 am in full health – I'm not coughing.”

Of the facility, the same SANA article noted that its labs had been visited by the OPCW, which issued two reports negating claims of any chemical weapons activities. This is a point Syria’s Ambassador al-Ja’afari raised in the April 14 UN Security Council meeting, noting that the OPCW “handed to Syria an official document which confirmed that the Barzeh centre was not used for any type of chemical activity” in contravention to Syria’s obligations regarding the OPCW.

Bombings based on Al-Qaeda and Jaysh al-Islam Claims

The entire pretext of the US and allies’ illegal bombings of Syria is immoral and flawed. There is no evidence to the claims that Syria used chemicals in Douma. Numerous analysts have pointed out the obvious: that Syria would not benefit from having used chemical weapons. But America, Israel and allies would benefit from staged attacks.

The website Moon of Alabama noted discrepancies in the videos passed around on social media as “evidence” of Syria’s culpability, including the following:

"The 'treatment' by the 'rebels', dousing with water and administering some asthma spray, is unprofessional and many of the 'patients' seem to have no real problem. It is theater. The real medical personnel are seen in the background working on a real patient.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry has released interviews with two men who were included in the footage alleging a chemical attack has occurred. One of the men, Halil Ajij, said he worked in the hospital in question, they had treated people for smoke poisoning, saying: “We treated them, based on their suffocation," also noting: “We didn’t see any patient with symptoms of a chemical weapons poisoning,” he said.

In an April 14 interview on Sky News, the former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, argued that the most elementary stage in the accusations game is to allow the actual inspection to occur.

“The evidence that chemical weapons were dropped is non-existent. Let the inspectors go in and possibly within days we will have a verdict but the jury is still out. ...I'm totally confident that the inspectors will not produce one shred of evidence to back up the assertions of the Americans. If the Americans had proof, they’d have brought it forward. What they're saying and what Mrs. May is saying, is just ‘take our word for it, trust us’. There’s not even a dodgy dossier this time.”

Israel and America benefit from the attacks... and are guilty of chemical weapons use
While the world’s eyes have been glazed over by chemical weapons script-reading journalists of corporate media, little notice is given to the ongoing Israeli slaughter and maiming of Palestinian unarmed demonstrators, targeted assassinations that last re-began with the March 30 murders of at least 17 unarmed Palestinians protesting in Gaza’s eastern regions. Israel’s murder of these unarmed youths, women and men got only mild tut-tuts from the UN, and was relegated to “clashes” by slavish corporate media. Israel is literally getting away with murder, as eyes are turned elsewhere.

According to Secretary Mattis, the US-led illegal attack on Syria “demonstrates international resolve to prevent chemical weapons from being used on anyone under any circumstances in contravention of international law.”

The irony? Both America and its close ally Israel have used chemical weapons on civilians. The US has attacked civilians in Vietnam and Iraq, to name but two countries, with chemical weapons.

In 2009, I was living in Gaza and documenting Israel’s war crimes when Israel bombed civilians all over Gaza with white phosphorous. These were civilians with nowhere to run or hide, including civilians who had fled their homes and taken shelter in a UN-recognized school. I myself documented numerous instances of Israel’s use of white phosphorous.

If this doesn’t outrage American citizens, the billions of US taxpayers’ dollars sent to Israel and spent on the bombing of sovereign nations — and not on America’s impoverished, nor on affordable health care — should outrage.

However, as author Jonathan Cook noted, the issue is not merely Trump’s threats to Syria:

“There is bipartisan support for this madness. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic leadership in the US, and much of the parliamentary Labour party in the UK, are fully on board with these actions. In fact, they have been goading Trump into launching attacks.”

By not attacking Russian forces in Syria this time, the US narrowly avoided a direct military confrontation with Russia, one which would have had global ramifications, to say the least.

The question now is: will the regime-change alliance be stupid and cruel enough to support yet another false flag chemical attack in their unending efforts to depose the Syrian president, or will they give up the game and allow Syria’s full return to peace? The US and allies claim their concern for Syrian civilians, but do everything in their power to ensure civilians suffer from terrorism and sanctions.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/424186-us-allies-syria-lie/

[blindpig]

There is a very large discrepancy between the Russian Ministry of Defense report of strike and the description in the Pentagon briefing on the strike. According to the Pentagon only three places related to non-existing Syrian chemical weapons were targeted:

This combined military strike was directed against three distinct Syrian chemical weapons program targets.
...
In summary, in a powerful show of allied unity, we deployed 105 weapons against three targets.
It does not make any sense to send 35 cruise missiles against each of those not hardened, not defended targets like the now destroyed Barzeh research center which was a small two story building complex (pic of destruction) and had been declared free of chemical weapons and weapon research by the OPCW. Why would the U.S. military use such a high number of precision weapons against only three targets? This is extremely unusual and does not make sense at all.

The Russians, as well as other sources on the ground, report in detail of many more targets:

Four missiles targeted the Damascus International Airport; 12 missiles – the Al-Dumayr airdrome, all the missiles have been shot down.
18 missiles targeted the Blai airdrome, all the missiles shot down.

12 missiles targeted the Shayrat air base, all the missiles shot down. Air bases were not affected by the strike.

Five out of nine missiles were shot down targeting the unoccupied Mazzeh airdrome.

Thirteen out of sixteen missiles were shot down targeting the Homs airdrome. There are no heavy destructions.

In total 30 missiles targeted facilities near Barzah and Jaramana. Seven of them have been shot down.

At least six airports were targeted according to the Russian report. The Pentagon reports no strike on Syrian airports but claims to have launched a way too high number of cruise missiles for each of the claimed three target. The Syrian opposition outlet SOHR reports of eight targets and says that at least 65 of the cruise missiles were downed by the Syrian air defenses. The Russians say 71 were shot down while the Pentagon says none of its cruise missiles were hit.

At least three other sources confirm the Russian version of events. The Pentagon is lying. The attack was a U.S. attempt to disable the Syrian air force by destroying its airports. It failed and the Pentagon is hiding that failure. Will the U.S. media report this discrepancy?

Not unrelated to the strike on Syria is the Skripal case where the mysteries continue to pile up.

Apr 12 - New Developments In The Skripal Drama - Police Statement, OPCW Report Release
Apr 15 - Where the Skripals 'Buzzed', 'Novi-shocked' Or Neither? - May Has Some 'Splaining' To Do
Use the comments as open thread ...

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/th ... 18-17.html

Given the info here a failed coup de main on Sryia's airforce is a strong possibility. Paper Tiger can't handle this shit.

[blindpig]

CAUGHT IN A LIE, US & ALLIES BOMB SYRIA THE NIGHT BEFORE INTERNATIONAL INSPECTORS ARRIVE


In January 2009, Israel repeatedly fired White Phosphorous on densely-populated areas of Gaza, targeting civilians. This was widely-documented, yet Israel has never been held accountable. America and allies recently bombed Syria on unproven, zero-evidence, allegations that Syria used chemical weapons. https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2009/01/17 ... y-members/

Apr 15, 2018, RT.com

-by Eva Bartlett
The US, Britain and France trampled international law to launch missiles against Syria, claiming to have “evidence” of the government’s use of chemical weapons. That evidence is based on terrorist lies.

After a week of outrageous tweets and proclamations by POTUS Trump, which included continued accusations that Syria’s president ordered a chemical weapons attack on civilians in Douma, east of Damascus, with Trump using grotesque and juvenile terminology, such as “animal Assad,” the very evening before chemical weapons inspectors of the OPCW were to visit Douma, America and allies launched illegal bombings against Syria. The illegal bombings included 103 missiles, 71 of which Russia states were intercepted.

For the past week, we were told that the US had ‘evidence’ and the UK had ‘evidence’ that Syria had used chemicals. The ‘evidence’ largely relied on video clips and photos shared on social media, provided by the Western-funded White Helmets (that ‘rescuer’ group that somehow only operates in Al-Qaeda and co-terrorist occupied areas and participates in torture and executions), as well as by Yaser al-Doumani, a man whose allegiance to Jaysh al-Islam is clear from his own Facebook posts, for example of former Jaysh al-Islam leader, Zahran Alloush.

This, we were told, was ‘evidence.’ This and the words of the highly partial, USAID-funded, US State Department allied Syrian American Medical Society, which, like Al-Qaeda’s rescuers, only supports doctors in terrorist-occupied areas.

On April 12, even US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee that the US government does not have any evidence that sarin or chlorine was used, that he was still looking for evidence.

Syria, finding the claims to be lies and the sources tainted, requested that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) immediately come to Syria to investigate the claims. Accordingly, the OPCW agreed to send a team—the visas for which Syria granted immediately—which arrived in Damascus on April 14.

President Trump, instead of waiting for an investigation to confirm his ‘evidence,’ chose the very night before this investigative team would arrive in Syria to inspect the allegations, to bomb Syria. The timing of the attacks is more than just a little timely. And the bombings were illegal.

General Mattis tried to dance around the legality, stating, “the president has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to use military force overseas to defend important United States national interests.”

But he is wrong, this does not permit the US to illegally bomb a sovereign nation, and he knows it. So does Russia. In a statement on April 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the attacks as illegal, noting:

“Without the sanction of the Security Council of the United Nations, in violation of the UN Charter, norms and principles of international law, an act of aggression against a sovereign state that is at the forefront of the fight against terrorism has been committed.”

What if chemicals had been at targeted locations?
In the same Pentagon briefing, General Joseph Dunford specified the US and allies’ targets in Syria, alleging they were “specifically associated with the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons program.” One target, at which 76 missiles were fired, was the Barzeh scientific research centre in heavily-populated Damascus itself, which Dunford claimed was involved in the “development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology.”

This ‘target’ is in the middle of a densely-inhabited area of Damascus. According to Damascus resident Dr. (of business and economy) Mudar Barakat, who knows the area in question, “the establishment consists of a number of buildings. One of them is a teaching institute. They are very close to the homes of the people around.”



Of the strikes, Dunford claimed they “inflicted maximum damage, without unnecessary risk to innocent civilians.”

If one believed the claims to be accurate, would bombing them really save Syrian lives, or to the contrary cause mass deaths? Where is the logic in bombing facilities believed to contain hazardous, toxic chemicals in or near densely populated areas?

Regarding the actual nature of the buildings bombed, Syrian media, SANA, describes the Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industries Research Institute as “centered on preparing the chemical compositions for cancer drugs.” The destruction of this institute is particularly bitter, as, under the criminal western sanctions, cancer medicines sales to Syria are prohibited.

Interviews with one of its employees, Said Said, corroborate SANA’s description of the facility making cancer treatment and other medicinal components. One article includes Said’s logical point: “If there were chemical weapons, we would not be able to stand here. I’ve been here since 5:30 am in full health – I’m not coughing.”

Of the facility, the same SANA article noted that its labs had been visited by the OPCW, which issued two reports negating claims of any chemical weapons activities. This is a point Syria’s Ambassador al-Ja’afari raised in the April 14 UN Security Council meeting, noting that the OPCW “handed to Syria an official document which confirmed that the Barzeh centre was not used for any type of chemical activity” that would be in contravention to Syria’s obligations regarding the OPCW.

Bombings based on Al-Qaeda and Jaysh al-Islam Claims
The entire pretext of the US and allies’ illegal bombings of Syria is immoral and flawed. There is no evidence to the claims that Syria used chemicals in Douma. Numerous analysts have pointed out the obvious: that Syria would not benefit from having used chemical weapons. But America, Israel and allies would benefit from staged attacks.

The website Moon of Alabama noted discrepancies in the videos passed around on social media as “evidence” of Syria’s culpability, including the following:

“The ‘treatment’ by the ‘rebels’, dousing with water and administering some asthma spray, is unprofessional and many of the ‘patients’ seem to have no real problem. It is theater. The real medical personnel are seen in the background working on a real patient.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry has released interviews with two men who were included in the footage alleging a chemical attack has occurred. One of the men, Halil Ajij, said he worked in the hospital in question, they had treated people for smoke poisoning, saying: “We treated them, based on their suffocation,” also noting: “We didn’t see any patient with symptoms of a chemical weapons poisoning,” he said.



In an April 14 interview on Sky News, the former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, argued that the most elementary stage in the accusations game is to allow the actual inspection to occur.

“The evidence that chemical weapons were dropped is non-existent. Let the inspectors go in and possibly within days we will have a verdict but the jury is still out. …I’m totally confident that the inspectors will not produce one shred of evidence to back up the assertions of the Americans. If the Americans had proof, they’d have brought it forward. What they’re saying and what Mrs. May is saying, is just ‘take our word for it, trust us’. There’s not even a dodgy dossier this time.”


Israel and America benefit from the attacks… and are guilty of chemical weapons use
While the world’s eyes have been glazed over by chemical weapons script-reading journalists of corporate media, little notice is given to the ongoing Israeli slaughter and maiming of Palestinian unarmed demonstrators, targeted assassinations that last re-began with the March 30 murders of at least 17 unarmed Palestinians protesting in Gaza’s eastern regions. Israel’s murder of these unarmed youths, women and men got only mild tut-tuts from the UN, and was relegated to “clashes” by slavish corporate media. Israel is literally getting away with murder, as eyes are turned elsewhere.

According to Secretary Mattis, the US-led illegal attack on Syria “demonstrates international resolve to prevent chemical weapons from being used on anyone under any circumstances in contravention of international law.”

The irony? Both America and its close ally Israel have used chemical weapons on civilians. The US has attacked civilians in Vietnam and Iraq, to name but two countries, with chemical weapons.

In 2009, I was living in Gaza and documenting Israel’s war crimes when Israel bombed civilians all over Gaza with white phosphorous. These were civilians with nowhere to run or hide, including civilians who had fled their homes and taken shelter in a UN-recognized school. I myself documented numerous instances of Israel’s use of white phosphorous.










If this doesn’t outrage American citizens, the billions of US taxpayers’ dollars sent to Israel and spent on the bombing of sovereign nations — and not on America’s impoverished, nor on affordable health care — should outrage.

However, as author Jonathan Cook noted, the issue is not merely Trump’s threats to Syria:

“There is bipartisan support for this madness. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic leadership in the US, and much of the parliamentary Labour party in the UK, are fully on board with these actions. In fact, they have been goading Trump into launching attacks.”

By not attacking Russian forces in Syria this time, the US narrowly avoided a direct military confrontation with Russia, one which would have had global ramifications, to say the least.

The question now is: will the regime-change alliance be stupid and cruel enough to support yet another false flag chemical attack in their unending efforts to depose the Syrian president, or will they give up the game and allow Syria’s full return to peace? The US and allies claim their concern for Syrian civilians, but do everything in their power to ensure civilians suffer from terrorism and sanctions.

https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2018/04/16 ... rs-arrive/

[blindpig]

Syria - Pentagon Hides Attack Failure - 70+ Cruise Missiles Shot Down
The U.S. military seems to hide that its attack on Syria last Saturday largely failed. We checked the numbers and sources and said so in our weekly review published yesterday. This post is extending yesterday's analysis.

There is a very large discrepancy between the Russian Ministry of Defense report of the strike as well as other sources and the description in the Pentagon briefing on the strike. According to the Pentagon only three places related to a non-existing Syrian chemical weapon program were targeted:

This combined military strike was directed against three distinct Syrian chemical weapons program targets.
...
We are confident that all of our missiles reached their targets.
...
In summary, in a powerful show of allied unity, we deployed 105 weapons against three targets.
One hundred and five weapons against three targets would be a remarkable overkill. Just consider that the U.S. Tomahawk and JASSM cruise missiles and the British Skalp EG cruise missiles used in these attacks carry 450 kilogram (~1,000 pounds) of high explosives each. Did the U.S. military really plan to use 15 metric tons of high explosives against each target. That would be enough to blow up a whole town.

The U.S. claims it sent 76 cruise missiles against the not hardened, not defended Barzeh research center. This was a small two story building complex and had just recently been declared free of chemical weapons and weapon research by the OPCW.

Sure, the facility is destroyed. But by 34 tons of high explosives? Or by maybe 2 tons?

The Barzeh center was a civilian facility next to a densely populated suburb of Damascus. It was concerned with agricultural a medical research, not with chemical weapons. The U.S. certainly knew that from the recent OPCW report. The U.S. claim that it was a chemical weapon facility is ridiculous as it would (hopefully) never consider to attacked a real chemical weapon facility in the mid of a civil population center. That would mass murder and serious war crime.

The Pentagon also claims hits against the Jamraya research center near Damascus and against an undefended military storage are near the Lebanese border. It says that those three were the only targets of its attack.

But on April 12, two days before the strikes, CNBC reported that the Pentagon planned to attack eight targets:

[A] source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told CNBC the U.S. was considering striking eight potential targets. Those targets include two Syrian airfields, a research center and a chemical weapons facility.
The strikes commenced on April 14 between about 1:00 and 2:30 UTC, 4.00am to 5:30am local time in Damascus. At 7:00am local time (4:00 UTC) journalist Danny Makki reported from Damascus:

Danny Makki @Dannymakkisyria - 4:06 UTC - 14 Apr 2018
Thread: Here’s how the U.S led strikes on #Syria developed from here in the Capital #Damascus in the early hours of this morning

At around 4.30 Damascus time I awoke to initial large sounds of over 10 rocket attacks, it immediately was clear from the types of missile being heard that it was a Western Attack conducted by the #U.S #France & #U.K
The strikes were heard clearly in all parts of the Capital and continued on and off for a duration of 50 minutes, Syrian state media reported the strikes but didn’t provide information as to the locations
All In all over 50 different strikes were heard or reported in different locations around #Damascus
The strikes had targeted a number of military sites across Damascus and further north in #Syria reportedly in #Hama & #Homs
Barzeh research facility which sits on the Eastern stretch of #Damascus was hit by numerous missiles
#Jamraya was reportedly hit as well, from my current location which is quite close to the site its clear something big was hit in Western #Damascus , the last barrage shook the neighborhood im In to the core
Mezzeh Military airport was reportedly struck as well (...)
A research facility in #Masyaf was reportedly attacked as well
Also, a number of sources in #Homs have reported strikes with additional information that Russia air defenses participated in countering the strikes in #Homs
A string of other locations have been cited as being targeted by U.S led strikes, its not clear at the moment, but it seems this attack was limited to a number of locations
...
It seems clear that Mr. Makki refers to more than three attacked sites.

Another source, Wael al Russi, also reported some eight targets including the coordinates of some.

The Syrian opposition outlet SOHR in Britain, which works from local sources, reports a multitude of targets:

[T]he Trio Coalition “the USA, Britain and France”, .. targeted .. the scientific research centers in Jamraya north of Damascus, and Barzeh in the north-west of the capital Damascus, arsenals of the 4th Division and the Republic Guards in the area of Al-Mazza Military Airbase, the arsenals of Al-Kiswah area in the southern countryside of the capital, and the scientific research center in the outskirts of Homs city, where the missiles fired on the latter position, fell away from the target, also violent explosions heard in the Eastern Qalamoun, while no missiles fell on Al-Dumayr and Al-Naseriyah Military Airbases.
Those are 8 targeted places or installations.

SOHR also reports that more than 65 of the 105 missiles failed to hit their targets:

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights managed to monitored interception by the regime forces to tens of missiles which targeted their positions and military bases in the Syrian territory, where several intersected sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory, that the number missiles that were downed, exceeded 65 missiles, of the total number of missiles fired by the Trio Coalition, while the air and rocket strikes, caused great material damage, while no information about casualties was reported yet.
The report of the Russian Ministry of Defense quoted below is consistent with the multitude of independent sources quoted above. The Russian briefing (video with English subtitles) was held at noon Damascus time, hours before the Pentagon issued its report. It mentions 103 cruise missiles against eight targets:


Target map from the Russian briefing - bigger

In total, 71 cruise missiles have been intercepted.
...
Four missiles targeted the Damascus International Airport; 12 missiles – the Al-Dumayr airdrome, all the missiles have been shot down.
18 missiles targeted the Blai airdrome, all the missiles shot down.

12 missiles targeted the Shayrat air base, all the missiles shot down. Air bases were not affected by the strike.

Five out of nine missiles were shot down targeting the unoccupied Mazzeh airdrome.

Thirteen out of sixteen missiles were shot down targeting the Homs airdrome. There are no heavy destructions.

In total 30 missiles targeted facilities near Barzah and Jaramana. Seven of them have been shot down.

Another Russian military briefing (Ru) (added: English transcript) given today claims the following success numbers for each type of air-defense systems the Syrian army used. It lists the numbers of cruise missiles shot down by each versus the number targeted:

Pantsir - 23 hits with 25 engagements,
Buk-M2 - 24 of 29,
Osa - 5 of 13,
S-125 - 5 of 13,
Strela-10 - 3 of 5,
Kvadrat - 11 of 21,
S-200 - 0 hits with 8 launched missiles.
Pantsir and Buk-M2 are new systems, the Osa, S-125, Strela, Kvadrat and S-200 are Soviet era systems, some of which might have been partially upgraded.

Some 'expert' claims that the high number of hits the Russians assert are impossible as the systems would be overwhelmed with such a large attack. The 'expert' obviously didn't consider the relevant facts:

Eight geographic distinct places were targeted. Two of those, the research labs, had no short-range point-defense but where only covered by the older medium-range area-defense systems S-125 and S-200. The military airports all had point-defense systems especially the impressive new Pantsir-1S (video) of which Syria recently received 40 units.
At least two Pansir-1S are stationed near each Syrian military airport. Each Pantsir has 12 missiles ready to fire and two machine cannons with 700 shots each.
Cruise missiles, developed from the German V-1 (vid) used in World War II, are small compared to fighter planes. But they fly relatively straight, slow and low. They are easy targets for any newer point-defense systems.
Therefore the number of eliminated cruise missiles the Russians and others claim to have been downed are are completely plausible.

Had the Russian air defense area around its bases in Latakia been attacked, the excellent electronic warfare systems of the Russian military would have provided an additional layer of defense. These systems can divert cruise missiles from their path by messing up their electronic systems. The Syrian army has, to my best knowledge, no such capabilities.

The Pentagon had planned to hit eight targets in Syria two of which were research labs. Six airports or storage areas were targeted according to the Russian and other reports.

The Pentagon reports no strike on Syrian airports but claims to have launched a way too high number of cruise missiles for each of the claimed three target it hit. Its claim that 76 missiles were used against Barzeh alone is ridiculous. The generals just added up all the failed and downed cruise missile targeted at the well defended airfields and attributed them to Barzeh.

At least three other sources confirm the Russian version of events. The Pentagon is lying. The attack was a U.S. attempt to disable the Syrian air force by destroying its airports. It failed miserably and the Pentagon is hiding this failure but claiming less targeted areas.

The Russian briefing today (Ru) puts the finger into that wound. Will any of U.S. media follow up on it?

Posted by b on April 16, 2018 at 03:36 PM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/sy ... down-.html

[blindpig]

Douma Chemical Attack False Flag Operation EXPOSED!. (Translated)

[blindpig]

Syria Sitrep - Cleanup Around Damascus Continues - WMD Rumors Prepare For New U.S. Attack
After the Syrian army liberated Douma, the next Takfiri held areas near the capital Damascus fell in short order. The Jaish al-Islam militants in Dumayr, north-east of Damascus, gave up without a fight. As usual by now the Takfiris were transferred to the north-western Idleb governorate held by al-Qaeda and other Turkish supported forces. The town of Dumayr controls the Damascus Baghdad highway. Capitulation negotiations in the nearby Eastern Qalamoun are ongoing.

The former Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk is an upbuild suburb south of Damascus. One part is in the hands of al-Qaeda and another was controlled by an Islamic State group. Offers to evacuate the groups were made but rejected. Yesterday the Syrian army launched a massive artillery barrage and the Russian and Syrian air force dropped bombs onto the quarter. Today, just twenty-four hours later, the Takfiris gave up. The al-Qaeda aligned militants will be evacuated to Idleb, the Islamic State aligned group to the eastern Syrian desert.

With each elimination of a 'rebel' pockets Syrian army is gaining strength. Ten-thousands of soldiers who were needed to hold the Takfiri held areas around Damascus surrounded and under control are now free to attack elsewhere. Some of the militants who did not evacuate also joined the government forces.

The evacuation of many militants to the north-west might later turn up to be problematic. They will eventually come under Turkish control and could be used in another Turkish attempt to take Aleppo. But for now they are infighting. Al-Qaeda in Syria, now renamed to Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is fighting with other groups over control of the area. Over the last months about one thousand of the militants have killed each other, 3,000 were wounded and many of their heavy arms were destroyed. The Syrian government hopes that such infighting will continue for a while.

When all the surrounded areas within the government realm are consolidated the Syrian army will move towards the borders in the south. The area around Deraa up to the Israeli occupied Golan heights and the Jordan border is in the hands of various groups of militants. Like in the north rebel infighting is a frequent occurrence. Two days ago an Islamic State aligned group tried to wrest control over some villages east of Deraa from some other local militant group. Fighting has been ongoing since and both sides are losing strength. One wonders how many of these fights between rebels are instigated by undercover Syrian intelligence agents.

The greatest difficulty for the Syrian army operation in the south is the Israeli supply and support for a number terrorist groups in that area. Should Israel intervene in any form in the Syrian operation to liberate the area the fight can easily escalate into a larger war.

The destroyed city of Raqqa in the east is becoming a headache for the U.S. occupation force. The U.S. used unwilling Kurdish ground troops to attack the city. It was not much of an infantry fight. Anything that moved was simply bombed from the air or ground. The one U.S. artillery battalion that covered the city fired more than 35,000 155mmm rounds during the five month operation. Now some 80% of the buildings in Raqqa are completely destroyed. The rest is inhabitable.



The city has no water and no electricity. The U.S. claimed that 2,500 ISIS militants were in the city when the fighting started. In the end the U.S. let at least 500 of those leave the city and move further east to fight the Syrian army. It also said that only 30 civilians were killed in its attack. That is of course nonsense. At least 2,000 dead bodies have been recovered so far and 6,000 more dead are recorded as still lying under the ruins. There will be more. The city administration has no equipment and money to recover them. The U.S. is unwilling to spend any money for the city it destroyed and the Kurdish warlords who now occupy the city are incompetent and have no interest to help its Arab inhabitants. The population that has returned is hostile towards the U.S. and the Kurds. It wants to get back under Syrian government control.

Further east at the Syrian Iraqi border and north of the Euphrates some 3-5,000 ISIS fighters live unmolested by U.S. air or ground attacks. The U.S. prevented Syrian government troops who control the area south of Euphrates from attacking the ISIS forces. But neither Syria nor Iraq can allow that ISIS pocket to survive. Yesterday a high level meeting was held in the operation room in Baghdad where Russian, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi commanders arrange common operations against ISIS. Shortly thereafter an Iraqi jet attacked a ISIS command meeting near Hajin in Syria. The strike had Syrian government approval. Syrian government forces have rebuild a military bridge that will allow them to cross the Euphrates in a future operation. Several battalions, including auxiliary troops under Iranian command, are ready to attack. Will the U.S. bomb them when they cross the river? Or will it hold back and allow Iraqi air support for the Syrian troops?

The neo-conservatives are busy insinuating that Syria still has chemical weapon program and that it is distributed throughout the country.

U.S. assessments following the U.S., British and French missile strikes on Syria show they had only a limited impact on President Bashar al-Assad’s ability to carry out chemical weapons attacks, four U.S. officials told Reuters.
...
U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the available intelligence indicated that Assad’s stock of chemicals and precursors was believed to be scattered far beyond the three targets.
This is of course just nonsense. Syria gave up its chemical weapons in 2013 and the OPCW confirmed that all weapon and precursor stocks were destroyed and all laboratories and production facilities dismantled.

This new fairytale of Assad's chemical weapons is designed to create a pretext for a another, more extensive bombing campaign against Syria. A fake pretext build on fake 'chemical attack' in Douma.

There is no evidence that any 'chemical attack' occurred in Douma. All the U.S., French and British government have are some videos created by known propagandists like the White Helmets who work for those governments. The State Department's spokesperson finally acknowledged that:

MS NAUERT: Yeah. ... We recognize and appreciate and are very grateful for all the work that the White Helmets continues to do on behalf of the people of their country and on behalf of the U.S. Government and all the coalition forces.
...
I’ve just exchanged emails with him the other day. My understanding is that their work is still going on, and we’re proud to work with them.
Republican Representative Massie remarked today:

Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie - 14:03 UTC- 19 Apr 2018
In briefing to Congress, DNI, SecDef, and SecState provided zero real evidence. Referenced info circulating online. Which means either they chose not to provide proof to Congress or they don’t have conclusive proof that Assad carried out gas attack. Either way, not good.

After being stalled for five days the OPCW fact finding mission finally reached the area in Douma where the alleged 'chemical attack happened. It entered under protection of Russian military police.

The research service of the German Bundestag published a report today which concludes that the U.S. led attack on Syria on April 13 was evidently in violation of international law.

Posted by b on April 20, 2018 at 03:06 PM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/sy ... ttack.html

[blindpig]

Mehdi Hasan, beautiful soul, and his diatribe against the consequential Left
April 21, 2018

By Stephen Gowans

If it wasn’t already clear, The Intercept’s Mehdi Hasan, wants us to know he’s a beautiful soul. In an April 19 diatribe against “Bashar al Assad apologists,” Hasan professes his distaste for war crimes, torture, and dictatorship, no matter the source, but devotes particular attention to the violence and restrictions on political and civil liberties attributable to the Syrian president. Assad, Hasan concludes, “is a war criminal even if he didn’t gas civilians,” and leftists should stop defending him. The journalist, who also works for the Qatari monarchy’s mouthpiece Al Jazeera, then proceeds to recite a litany of charges against Assad, some undeniable, some unproved or unprovable. One gets the impression that he’s peeved that the latest chemical weapons allegations against the Syrian government, ridiculously thin to begin with, and now largely demolished by Robert Fisk’s reporting, have failed to stick.

At one time, where one stood on the political spectrum depended on one’s position on the questions of political, social, and economic equality, on a national and international level. Leftists favored greater equality; conservatives liked the status quo; and reactionaries, including Qatari monarchs, agitated for a return to a world of ascriptive hierarchies based on class, gender and race. The methods political actors used to achieve their goals could be judged as acceptable or deplorable on moral or instrumental grounds, but it was understood that the methods used were not intrinsic to the goals sought.

It was also understood that the circumstances constrained the methods. The methods available to advance a struggle toward growing equality, for example, or in defense of it, differed depending on the strength of the opposition; the likelihood it would yield to violence versus moral suasion; the degree to which supporters could be galvanized to fight and their tolerance for sacrifice, and so on. One could find the methods disagreeable, but if so, there was an expectation that one would suggest realistic alternatives.

Hasan has turned the distinction between goals and methods on its head. In Hasan’s view, leftists are defined not by what they’re trying to achieve, but by the methods they use. Torture, dictatorship, abridgement of civil liberties, warfare that produces collateral civilian casualties—all these things, according to Hasan, are signs of a contra-left political orientation. Thus, he argues, with illogic, that “Bashar al-Assad is not an anti-imperialist of any kind, nor is he a secular bulwark against jihadism; he is a mass murderer, plain and simple.” The illogic is evident in the false dichotomy that lies at the center of his argument. Mass murderer (if indeed Assad can be so characterized) does not exclude anti-imperialist and secular bulwark against jihadism; but in Hasan’s world, mass murderer and secular anti-imperialist are mutually exclusive. They are so to Hasan, because he has transfigured Leftism into the concept of avoiding all choices that have potentially awful consequences.

The beautiful soul retreats from the political struggles of the real world into impotent moral posturing, where no choices are ever made, because the consequences of all choices are awful to one degree or another. Success, then, in any political struggle is transformed from acting on the world to change it into avoiding any step that might have terrible consequences—a recipe for impotence, paralysis and failure. To the beautiful soul, the only leftist political movement that is worthy of support is the one that fails, never the one that comes to power and implements its political program and fights to overcome opposition to it.

To Hasan, the Syrian State’s position on the political spectrum is unrelated to its goals: overcoming sectarian and other divisions in the Arab world, safeguarding Syria’s political independence, and achieving economic sovereignty. Nor does it matter that Damascus is engaged in a struggle against (to use Hasan’s own words) “rapacious U.S. foreign policy”, “Saudi-inspired extremism” and “Israeli opportunism”—in other words, the aggression of conservative and reactionary forces that are more powerful individually to say nothing of collectively than the Syrian State by many orders of magnitude. To the Mahatma, all of these considerations are irrelevant, and all that matters in the evaluation of Assad’s political orientation is whether the methods Damascus has used to defend the gains it has made in the direction of asserting its right to equality and sovereignty are methods that that are suitable to a State in periods of stability, normalcy and safety. It’s as if what Hasan deplores about a war cabinet, for example, is not the war that made the war cabinet necessary, but the very fact that a war cabinet was created in response to it, as if carrying on in the regular manner could somehow make the war go away.

Yet what alternatives might the Syrian government have adopted to face the crisis and emergency that rapacious US foreign policy, Saudi-inspired extremism, and Israeli opportunism inflicted upon it? Even the US constitution makes provision for concentration of authority in the executive branch and abridgement of political and civil liberties under conditions of internal rebellion and threatened invasion. From the mid-1960s forward, if not earlier, Syria has faced permanent crisis and emergency, including an ongoing official state of war with Israel, foreign occupation of its territory (now by the United States and Turkey in addition to Israel), and the fostering of internal rebellion by Western states with imperial ambitions—comparable conditions to those which the architects of the US constitution envisaged would require extraordinary powers for US presidents. Are not comparable powers required for a Syrian president? Any realistic assessment of the challenges Syria faces leads inevitably to the conclusion that harsh and quite disagreeable measures are called for if the Leftist project of defending the equality and sovereignty of Syria within the international network of States is to be achieved against the determined opposition of “rapacious U.S. foreign policy,” “Saudi-inspired extremism” and “Israeli opportunism.”

So, faced with these enormous challenges, what should Assad do? Whatever it is, Hasan can’t say. The best The Intercept writer can do is demand: “Is it the only way you know how to oppose” US, Saudi and Israeli aggression? Well, it does, indeed, appear to be the only way the Syrian government knows how to resist forces many times stronger than itself. But if not this way, then what way? “Should we shoot balloons at the opposition?” Assad once asked another beautiful soul.

In the war against the Axis states, the Allies used torture, summary executions, indiscriminate bombing, confinement of civilians to concentration camps, encroachments on civil liberties, concentration of power in the executive branch, and worse. These methods were clearly disagreeable. And yet, they were the methods chosen to overcome fascism.

It would be wrong to denounce the anti-fascist war as deplorable because some, or indeed many, of its methods, were distasteful–from the virtual dictatorships exercised in Britain and the United States, to the abuse, torture and summary executions of Axis prisoners of war, to sieges and the starving of civilians. And was the Allied countries’ refusal to guarantee the rights of assembly and free expression of Nazi and fascist supporters to be condemned as a human rights violation? Every accusation Hasan makes against Assad he can equally make against Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s conduct in WWII. Curiously (or predictably) he doesn’t, choosing instead to direct his venom at the duo’s ally, Stalin, the only one of the three whose goals were authentically leftist.

The beautiful soul is not of this world. The options available to people who achieve real gains in real world political struggles are rarely simple, and are often ugly and disagreeable to one degree or another. The beautiful soul removes himself from the real world of politics, like the monk retreating from the world into his cell, and thereby avoids having to make choices whose consequences may be regrettable. His politics revolve around denunciations of the choices made by people who act on the world to change it. Few would contest that Hitler’s Nazism, Mussolini’s fascism, and Tojo’s militarism, could have been overcome except by recourse to violence, with all its ugly outcomes, though we can imagine Hasan, the Mahatma, demanding of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin: “Is war the only way you know how to oppose rapacious Nazism, or Japanese imperialism of Mussolini’s opportunism?” We can also imagine him thundering that “Roosevelt is not an anti-fascist of any kind; he is a mass murderer, plain and simple.”

Leftism is not turning the other cheek, an unqualified commitment to rights of free expression and assembly, or scrupulously observing the rules of war, anymore than it’s the opposite of these things. However much Hasan would have us believe that Assad’s shooting balloons at the opposition would make him an authentic anti-imperialist and genuine secular bulwark against jihadism, the truth of the matter is that that shooting balloons would only make Assad a spectacularly unsuccessful anti-imperialist and a secular sieve rather than secular bulwark against jihadist extremism. The Syrian president is unquestionably an anti-imperialist, a point Hasan, himself, concedes (though he doesn’t seem to know it) when he asks is there no other way to oppose US imperialism? What is an anti-imperialist but one who opposes imperialism? The Syrian president, then, in Hasan’s view is engaged in anti-imperialist opposition—he just doesn’t like Assad’s methods. He can’t, however, suggest any realistic alternatives.

What distinguishes Assad from leaders Hasan doesn’t demonize as mass murderers is that Assad has been forced by an internal rebellion and invasion to invoke police state powers and deploy force to meet the crisis and that other leaders, enjoying conditions of stability and normalcy, have not. Would any leader under comparable circumstances have acted differently? Hasan’s facile analysis inevitably condemns all leaders of any State or movement that has deployed force and killed, as mass murderers, unless they have met two sets of impossible standards: (1) they’ve guaranteed a politically open society in which the rights of free expression and assembly are guaranteed to all, including the opposition, which is thereby allowed to freely organize the government’s demise, and (2) they carry out all armed operations strictly in accordance with the rules of war.

The New York Times once observed that the US military adheres to all laws of war when it can but violates them under circumstances of military necessity, as, for example, in the liberation of cities from insurgents who use the civilian population as shields. Hasan condemns the Syrian Arab Army (or rather Assad specifically) for siege and indiscriminate bombing, presumably in connection with the liberation of Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta, measures also employed by US forces in the liberation of Raqqa and Mosul. US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis defended the US violations on the grounds that “Civilian casualties are a fact of life in this sort of situation.” (Hasan, predictably, didn’t include Mattis in his demonology; the beautiful soul reserves his most impassioned tirades for figures of the Left.) The only alternative to siege and bombing was to accept the capture of these cities by Islamist insurgents as a fait accompli–hence, to surrender to Saudi-inspired extremism and accept the disintegration of the secular Arab nationalist state and the leftist (i.e., anti-imperialist) values embedded in it.

The argument I’m making here is not one of “whataboutism”, but that the only realistic choices available to a military confronting insurgent forces which capture territory and refuse to allow the civilian population to flee are either (1) siege and bombing, with inevitable civilian casualties, or (2) capitulation. Hasan’s diatribe against Assad is in effect a plea for Syrian surrender, for there is no realistic way the Syrian government can meet the crisis and emergency produced by “rapacious U.S. foreign policy”, “Saudi-inspired extremism” and “Israeli opportunism” but to take measures Hasan and other beautiful souls will shudder at and condemn. Implicit in Hasan’s analysis is the view that the only real world struggles against inequality worthy of support are those that use quixotic methods that guarantee their failure, and hence, facilitate the triumph of movements of exclusion, inequality, oppression and exploitation.

https://gowans.wordpress.com/2018/04/21 ... tial-left/

Link to Fisk article - https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/sy ... 07726.html

****************************************************

Edit, some criticism of article:

Leila @ainiladra

Replying to @GowansStephen
this paragraph is really awful. there was no “liberation of raqqa”. it was occupied by the us & its sdf proxies & it is almost completely destroyed... & aleppo was besieged by nato’s contras, not the syrian govt who evacuated 10000s of civilians & have since welcomed 800,000 back


‏
criticism spot on

response:

@GowansStephen

No, I'm not saying that. At least that wasn't my intention. My intention was to say US forces brought these cities under their control.

(Well, I've put my foot in my mouth a few times...)

[blindpig]

OPCW Finds No Chemical Weapons At Syrian Facilities Bombed By US – Russian MoD
SYRIA NEWS
On Apr 25, 2018



Last week, the fact-finding mission of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) visited a site in the Damascus suburb of Douma to collect samples in connection with the alleged April 7 chemical attack.

Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff Col. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy has announced that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had confirmed that there were no chemical weapons found at the Barzeh research center in Damascus despite the US officials’ claims.

The ministry further noted that thousands of people could have died if there was any chemical weapon on the sites that were attacked by the US-led coalition.

“Shortly after the airstrikes, many people visited those sites without any protective equipment. No one got any signs of gas-poisoning,” Colonel-General Sergey Rudskoy said.

Russian specialists are examining missiles of the US-led coalition, including Tomahawk, which were captured in Syria to improve Russian weapons, Rudskoy said Wednesday.

“Two [missiles] including Tomahawk cruise missile and a high-precision aviation missile were delivered to Moscow… They are now being examined by our experts. The results of this work will be used to improve Russian weapons,” he told a briefing.

Rudskoy further noted that only seven western missiles struck the Syrian Han Shinshar facility, which allegedly housed chemical weapons, not 22 as the Pentagon claims.

Rudskoy stressed that chemical weapons were never developed or stored in Han Shinshar, located in the province of Homs, adding that the storage was struck twice, not seven times, as the US side claims.

“According to the statements of the Pentagon’s representatives, 22 missiles hit the above-ground facilities. We registered no more than seven hits, which is shown in the space image,” he told a briefing.

At the same time, according to the senior military official, Russia will supply new air defense systems to Syria in the near future.

“Russian specialists will continue training Syrian military personnel, and will assist in mastering new air defense systems, which will be supplied in the near future,” Rudskoy said.

Earlier, reports have emerged about an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, published by an online Syrian opposition news portals on April 7, claiming that a chemical attack took place in Syria in the city of Douma near Damascus.

Reacting to the reports, the United States and the European Union said the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad was behind the attack.

Moscow has called the news reports about the attack “hoaxes” and warned against military attacks against Syrian areas where Russian troops are deployed. The Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria representatives inspected the location of the alleged attack and questioned local doctors, who said that they had not received individuals with symptoms of any chemical poisoning.

However, despite the lack of evidence, the US, alongside France and the UK, launched a massive missile attack against Syria on April 14 in response to the alleged chemical attack in the city of Douma.

Sputnik

https://muraselon.com/en/2018/04/opcw-f ... ssian-mod/

[blindpig]

Aleppo rebuilds itself from destruction of war
Commercial and leisure activities return to Syrian city as half a million people drift back
Wed, Oct 25, 2017, 01:00

Michael Jansen in Aleppo


Aleppo regeneration: solar-powered street lights in damaged eastern zone. Photograph: Michael Jansen


Syria may be the only country in recent times to rebuild before a devastating war ends. Aleppo, Syria’s former commercial powerhouse, has been transformed during the seven months since I last visited.

The roar and throb of generators has been partially silenced by restored electricity in the formerly divided city’s western neighbourhoods, which were retained by the government after Free Syrian Army rebels seized the eastern sector in July 2012.

Water flows from the distant Euphrates river through a channel and pipes into homes, businesses and factories. Traffic is heavy, petrol is readily available. Hotels are filled with conferences and visiting delegations. French doctors are here at present.

While there is still no airport, thousands of people come and go and supplies are brought along a route bypassing the Raqqa battleground which runs along the outer edge of al-Qaeda-dominated countryside and Iblib province. The chief perils on the journey are massive lorries bringing essential supplies.

The damaged eastern districts of Aleppo, where jihadis replaced rebels, had a population of two million before the war. Almost all civilians left during the conflict but half a million have returned. The sector is both a market place and building site. Shops have reopened along the battered but not bowed main street where the sole unscathed shop became a beacon for entrepreneurs.

After the Syrian army ousted insurgents and jihadis last December, Fahd Aziz Hokan found his patisserie untouched by bombs and mortars and his oven primed for baking. Today he has added salty pastries to his delicate sweet confections. “Raw materials cost the same,” he says, “so prices are no higher.”

Shopkeepers and artisans
Five months ago, his family moved back from the west. The city’s tenacious, four millennia-old commercial spirit has been revived, particularly among small shopkeepers and artisans.


Aleppo regeneration: The beacon shop in eastern Aleppo with proprietor Fahd Aziz Hokan. Photograph: Michael Jansen

Surviving stalls and workshops in Aleppo’s Old City, a magnet for local folk and tourists, are opening but at least 30 per cent of the area, a former front line, has been totally destroyed. Elegant hotels and restaurants lodged in 18th and 19th-century Ottoman mansions are heaps of broken stones and powdered plaster.

Workmen clear rubble from ruins but reusable blocks of stone are carefully placed in low walls on the sides of streets and alleyways. Rebuilding means recycling for thrifty Aleppines. They have no alternative. There is no Marshall Plan for Syria.

Aleppo’s newest industrial estate, Shaikh Najjar, a vast wasteland of scrub and bomb-holed and gutted factories, is 10km from the city. Plants manufacturing a wide range of goods were pounded and pillaged. Machinery was allegedly transported north to Turkey.

The Taha and Barakat glass factory stands next to a warehouse for humanitarian aid where lorries deposit and load parcels destined for impoverished and displaced families. The factory escaped the bombers and looters but ceased production in November 2011, says Mahmoud Hallaq, as he shows us around.


Aleppo regeneration: Mahmoud Hallaq in the glass factory. Photograph: Michael Jansen

“This was the largest glass factory in the region. We exported to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. We closed because the line has to operate 24 hours, seven days a week.”

Power cuts and the lack of sand from the town of al- Qaryatayn, 279km away, made it impossible to continue. Manufacturing was a Syria-wide endeavour disrupted when the circulation of materials ceased.

Rusty and dusty
The two, now rusty and dusty, automated lines of Chinese manufacture produced a total of 8,000m of glass a day, Hallaq says. “We had three work shifts of eight hours. We employed 250 workers in the factory and another 250 as drivers and in other jobs. Senior staff were paid $1,500 a month and workers $350-$400, high salaries for Syria.”

Hallaq sighs: “I was the chief engineer; now I’m the guard.”

If the government meets its pledge to provide a stable electricity supply by the year’s end, the plant could restart. Taha and Barakat are fortunate their massive, heavy equipment stymied looters.

The chairman of Aleppo’s Chamber of Industry, Fares al-Shehabi, says the war has “done devastating damage to Aleppo’s 40,000 factories”. Nevertheless, 10,000 factories in the industrial estates are working as well as 80 for textiles and food in Aleppo city.

He has turned his pillaged olive oil factory into a free school for 1,600 children of workers. “The best way to fight [jihadis] is secular education,” he says.

Aleppo factory owners have filed a case in the European Court of Human Rights against Turkey and have produced “solid evidence” it was involved directly in the looting of factories and the transport of equipment across the border.

“The case is being followed up by lawyers,” says Shehabi, who took his engineering degrees in Columbus, Ohio. “Sanctions are obstacles to the rebuilding of the country’s infrastructure and affect every citizen. Post-war contracts will be given to countries that did not make war on Syria: Russia, Iran, China and Brazil. ”

Death and devastation
Suffering six years of war has made many Syrians still in the country, even vocal critics of the government, bitter against outside powers which have trained, armed and financed rebels and jihadis whom these Syrians blame for death and devastation rather than Damascus.


Aleppo from strategic hilltop. Photograph: Michael Jansen

But now Aleppo’s 5,000-year-old citadel is besieged in the evenings by cheerful families seeking simple pleasures rather than by armed men bent on conquest. Vendors come with boiled and roasted ears of sweetcorn, kebabs, and puffs of pink cotton candy.

Cars vye for parking spaces, motorbikes raise dust from the road, children plead for sweets and pull parents from cart to cart. The popular outdoor restaurant next to the ruins of the Carlton Hotel is packed.

“People used to come here at four in the morning to watch the sun rise, drink tea and smoke shisha,” said friend Fadi as the rattle of machine-gun fire reminds us the war is not quite over. No one flinches or flees.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/m ... -1.3267526

Compare and contrast with Raqqa

[chlamor]

Syrian Forces Discover UK, German-Made Chemical Weapons Depot In Douma

https://muraselon.com/en/2018/04/syrian ... -in-douma/