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Chemical Weapons Team In Syria Kept From Alleged Attack Site
Bassem Mroue, Associated Press, 4/16/2018

Syrian and Russian authorities prevented independent investigators from going to the scene of a suspected chemical attack, the head of the chemical watchdog group said Monday, blocking international efforts to establish what happened and who was to blame.

The US and France say they have evidence that poison gas was used in the April 7 attack in the opposition-held town of Douma, killing dozens of people, and that Syrian President Bashar Assad's military was behind it. But they have made none of that evidence public, even after they, along with Britain, bombarded sites they said were linked to Syria's chemical weapons program.

Syria and its ally Russia deny any chemical attack took place, and Russian officials went even further, accusing Britain of staging a "fake" chemical attack. British Prime Minister Theresa May accused the two countries - whose forces now control the town east of Damascus - of trying to cover up evidence.

The lack of access to Douma by inspectors from the watchdog group, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, has left unanswered questions about the attack. OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu said Syrian and Russian officials cited "pending security issues" in keeping its inspectors from reaching Douma. "The team has not yet deployed to Douma," Uzumcu told an executive council meeting of the OPCW in the Hague.

Instead, Syrian authorities offered them 22 people to interview as witnesses, he said, adding that he hoped "all necessary arrangements will be made...to allow the team to deploy to Douma as soon as possible."

Russian military police were ready to help protect the OPCW experts on their visit to Douma, said Maj. Gen. Yuri Yevtushenko of the Russian military's Reconciliation Center in Syria. Igor Kirillov, a Russian chemical weapons protection expert in the Hague, said the team is set to visit the site Wednsday.

Earlier Monday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov said the inspectors could not go to the site because they needed approval from the U.N. Department for Safety and Security. He denied Russia was hampering the mission and suggested the approval was held up because of the Western airstrikes. "As far as I understand, what is hampering a speedy resolution of this problem is the consequences of the illegal, unlawful military action that Great Britain and other countries conducted on Saturday," he said.

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Originally posted by Deqlyn:
when-youre-dying-in-a-false-flag-sarin-gas-attack-but-you-also-need-to-post-a-new-pic-for-your-instagram-followers-syria.jpg

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Originally posted by RogueJSK:

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Originally posted by Deqlyn:
when-youre-dying-in-a-false-flag-sarin-gas-attack-but-you-also-need-to-post-a-new-pic-for-your-instagram-followers-syria.jpg

That series of photos is from November 2016, showing a staged rescue video. Nothing to do with the recent Sarin attacks.

See https://youtu.be/9rOL7fYyRQo

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On Pompeo’s first Mid East trip, Saudis strike Houthi leaders, missiles hit Iranian targets in Syria

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The first message I take from the attack: I have a feeling we’re not in Obamaland anymore.

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Tehran terrified, ex-Pentagon official says

The Iranian regime is “quaking in its boots,” after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed secret nuclear-program documents appropriated by the Mossad, an ex-Pentagon Iran expert told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Harold Rhode spent 28 years at the Pentagon and studied in Iran before the 1979 revolution there. The fluent Farsi speaker, who is now associated with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said his view stems from a wave of recent Iranian infighting.

He said when things are not going well in Iran, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officials and rival ayatollahs start attacking each other in a public blame game that expresses how exposed and vulnerable they feel their rule has become.

Rhode named senior Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi-Amoli from northern Iran who has been lashing out at rivals, saying their corruption was bringing down the regime.

Israel “humiliated the Iranian government by capturing all of this material,” Rhode said, and many Iranians were laughing at the Islamic regime on social media.

While the global media stopped covering protests against the regime months ago, he noted, the protests are still churning.

The former Pentagon official said that when he asked Iranian friends for a list of where the protests were happening, they said protests were so widespread it would be easier to make a shorter list of cities where they were not happening.

He also said the audacious Mossad raid, “proves what they think of Jews – that they are the smartest people on earth and can do anything.”

Rhode added a personal anecdote from when he lived in Iran decades ago. When asked about the Jews’ ability, he joked to some Iranian friends: “There was a Jewish technology of tiny little zippers between our foreheads and hairlines to send messages to conspiracy central where the... ‘Elders of Zion’ collected everything. They believed this was how things really worked.”

Last week, the body that likely was that of former Iranian ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi – which had been hidden by the regime since the revolution – was discovered. That, he noted, has led many Iranians, who often think superstitiously, to question whether the discovery is an omen indicating the revolution leading to the Islamic Republic was a mistake.

Rhode said the average Iranian “would like nothing more than to wake up and have this nightmare regime over with and again proudly be accepted as members of the international community.”

In that light, he said, it is now “the time to reassure the Iranian people that we stand with them against their brutal rulers,” and reassure the Iranian people that “after their terrorist regime is overthrown, we will gladly welcome them back into the community of nations.”