{"id":244815,"date":"2023-09-25T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=244815"},"modified":"2023-09-24T05:26:07","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T04:26:07","slug":"hoax-uk-intelligence-spun-2013-syria-chemical-attack-leaked-docs-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/09\/hoax-uk-intelligence-spun-2013-syria-chemical-attack-leaked-docs-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoax: UK Intelligence Spun 2013 Syria Chemical Attack, Leaked Docs Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

US officials suppressed internal assessments that Al Qaeda\u2019s Syrian wing had an \u201cadvanced\u201d sarin production cell even as the US publicly blamed the Assad government for a 2013 chemical weapons attack, a report reveals. <\/em><\/p>\n

Leaked documents obtained by The Grayzone show a shadowy British intelligence contractor helped sell the story that Assad was responsible \u2013 and nearly triggered Western intervention.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

19 Sep 2023<\/em> – On 13 Sep, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published<\/a> a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) appraisal<\/a> detailing the chemical weapons arsenal possessed by the Al Qaeda-aligned Syrian armed opposition group known as Jabhat al-Nusra. The document claims the terror group acquired the ability to produce sarin through Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both sponsors of the Syrian proxy war, and was attempting to achieve \u201clarge scale production\u201d of the highly toxic nerve agent. The memo lamented that al-Nusra\u2019s \u201crelative freedom of operation\u201d in the country meant its \u201c[chemical weapons] aspirations will be difficult to disrupt in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The disclosures raise serious questions about the infamous 2013 chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, including whether the estimated 280<\/a> to 1700<\/a> people killed were in fact massacred by al-Nusra, and not Syrian loyalist forces. The revelations also cast significant doubt on claims that the government of Bashar Al-Assad was responsible for other alleged chemical attacks during the Syrian crisis.<\/p>\n

As Hersh notes, the incident in Ghouta nearly triggered Western military intervention in Syria, which likely would have resembled the NATO operation which led to the destruction of Libya two years earlier. It would\u2019ve been a war based on deceit comparable to the false claims that precipitated the illegal US invasion of Iraq in 2003.<\/p>\n

The role of British intelligence in attempting to escalate the conflict has been overlooked to this point. Now, never-before-seen official documents obtained by The Grayzone illustrate the crucial role UK intelligence played in the failed push to launch a NATO invasion of Syria.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018High confidence\u2019 intelligence assessment fails<\/b><\/h3>\n

While the Obama White House claimed to possess<\/a> incontrovertible proof that the Syrian government was responsible for the attack in Ghouta, it stubbornly refused to disclose any. By contrast, communications intercepted<\/a> by German spies suggested Assad neither ordered nor had any knowledge of the attack. Meanwhile, \u201cmultiple\u201d US officials told AP<\/a> that intelligence implicating Syrian forces was \u201cnot a slam dunk.\u201d<\/p>\n

The choice of wording was widely understood to be a deliberate reference to then-CIA Director George Tenet\u2019s insistence<\/a> that intelligence showed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in 2002. Apparently, American spies did not want to be blamed for triggering an invasion on false pretenses this time around.<\/p>\n

The DIA\u2019s internal assessment explicitly states that Al-Nusra maintained sarin production facilities, describing the \u201cal-Nusrah Front associated sarin production cell\u201d as \u201cthe most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida\u2019s pre 9\/11 effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Hersh, the report in question never reached the White House. An anonymous senior intelligence official reportedly told the journalist that in the name of \u201cpolitical expediency,\u201d evidence implicating al-Nusra was deliberately withheld from President Obama, who repeatedly insisted that no such proof existed:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not believe that, given the delivery systems, using rockets, that the opposition could have carried out these attacks. We have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intelligence officials in Britain struck a similar tone. On August 27 2013, London\u2019s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) published an assessment<\/a> on Ghouta which maintained that there are \u201cno plausible alternative scenarios\u201d to the idea that Syrian government forces were responsible for the incident.<\/p>\n

The assessment offered no evidence to support the charge, citing only unspecified \u201chighly sensitive\u201d intelligence. While the group acknowledged that a number of opposition groups were seeking chemical weapons, it insisted that \u201cnone currently has the capability to conduct [an] attack on this scale,\u201d and that there was \u201cno credible intelligence or other evidence to substantiate\u201d claims that opposition groups possessed chemical weapons. But the newly-released DIA documents completely contradict that assertion.<\/p>\n

Even less impressively, the JIC admitted that its \u201chigh confidence\u201d in its assessment did not extend to \u201cthe regime\u2019s precise motivation for carrying out an attack of this scale at this time.\u201d It acknowledged the key question of why the Syrian government would conduct a chemical strike \u201cremains a puzzle.\u201d There was \u201cno obvious political or military trigger\u201d for the action, and the presence of UN weapons inspectors in Damascus when the attack took place was a clear deterrent, as was Obama making such strikes a \u201cred line.\u201d<\/p>\n

One area of certainty for the JIC was the \u201cextensive video footage attributed to the attack in eastern Damascus,\u201d depicting vast numbers of victims suffering from the apparent effects of \u201ca nerve agent, such as sarin.\u201d The Committee assessed this \u201cwould be very difficult to falsify,\u201d which lends credence to independent investigations<\/a> that attribute the bodies seen in the footage to a massacre carried out by al-Nusra.<\/p>\n

Somewhat surprisingly \u2014 given all the pro-intervention tubthumping in which it would engage over the next decade \u2014 The Guardian newspaper published a highly skeptical analysis<\/a> at the time which slammed the JIC assessment for its \u201cstriking lack of any scientific evidence.\u201d The publication quoted chemical weapons expert Alastair Hay, who received the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons\u2019 Hague Award in 2015, as saying: \u201cthere are no hard facts, it is more a case of \u2018believe us and our experts.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

British lawmakers were similarly unconvinced. During an August 29 vote on military intervention, then-Prime Minister David Cameron repeatedly cited<\/a> the Committee\u2019s assessment while arguing for bombing Syria. But members of Parliament ultimately voted against the proposed war. Many MPs were concerned about trusting opaque intelligence assessments after the Iraq debacle, and several expressed fears that an initial aerial attack would ultimately lead to boots on the ground and occupation.<\/p>\n

London\u2019s decision to buckle on intervention also took the prospect off the table for Washington as well. By that point, MI6 had been conducting operations<\/a> to smuggle soil samples out of Syria for some time. A mainstream media report<\/a> on these efforts published six days after the Ghouta incident quoted an anonymous \u201csenior Western source\u201d who made clear the objective was to generate pressure for a US intervention:<\/p>\n

\u201cMI6 played the leading role but the American military wants more evidence before it agrees Assad has crossed the line in the use of chemical weapons. The question is what is the West going to do now? If nobody reacts, there was not much point in conducting the tests.\u201d<\/p>\n

As The Grayzone has revealed, British intelligence assets were intimately involved<\/a> in either staging or marketing virtually every alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria throughout the conflict. The British skullduggery only intensified after Ghouta, as did the CIA\u2019s notorious Operation Timber Sycamore, which saw Langley spend roughly $1 billion per year to arm and train anti-Assad insurgents. And as the CIA prosecuted its dirty war against Damascus, MI6 played a critically supportive role.<\/p>\n

British intel operatives puppeteer Syria\u2019s opposition<\/b><\/h3>\n

A sizable international coalition was banking on British parliamentarians greenlighting intervention, believing it would open the floodgates for regime change, and Syria being overrun by foreign forces.<\/p>\n

John Jenkins<\/a>, a veteran diplomat who served as London\u2019s special representative to Libya following NATO\u2019s violent ouster of Muammar Gaddafi during 2011 and later became the UK\u2019s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said there was serious resentment<\/a> in Riyadh following Western governments\u2019 failure to take the bait.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember vividly the last week of August 2013, when Assad was going to be punished for stepping over that particular \u2018red line,\u2019\u201d wrote Jenkins, who was \u201cin Riyadh at the time and involved in seeking, on behalf of the British government, senior engagement by the Saudis in an international response, which they were willing to give.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sense of frustration when the UK and US stepped back was palpable,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

Leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone show Western-backed extremists in Syria were also despondent. A late 2013 submission to the British Foreign Office by a firm called ARK International recorded how \u201cthe Syrian opposition leadership was \u2018shocked\u2019 by the UK\u2019s \u2018no\u2019 vote on the principle of intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

ARK was a government contractor founded by longtime MI6 operative Alistair Harris and staffed by military and intelligence veterans. Throughout the dirty war on Syria, it was an omnipresent player.<\/p>\n

A cursory glance at ARK\u2019s website<\/a> reveals the group partners with CIA cut-out USAID, the US State Department, and the British military. The group bills itself as a \u201csocial enterprise empowering local communities\u201d through \u201cthe provision of agile and sustainable interventions to create greater stability, opportunity and hope for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the leaked documents, ARK expressed anxiety that anti-government militias would now be unwilling \u201cto work with Western advisors,\u201d given the \u201cinaction over both the steady state conflict and inactivity following the August 2013 chemical weapons attack.\u201d Since it had operated in Syria since the very first days of the crisis, ARK bragged that it could rely on a team of Arabs to \u201cgain the trust and respect\u201d of the Free Syrian Army anew, and counter perceptions among the opposition that its leaders were \u201cbeing \u2018told what to do\u2019 by foreigners.\u201d<\/p>\n

ARK\u2019s clandestine meddling in Syria was massive. The group raked in millions of pounds conducting psychological warfare operations funded by London, which aimed to destabilize the government of Bashar Assad by flooding media across the world with pro-opposition propaganda in an effort to convince Syrians, international bodies and Western citizens that militant groups rampaging across the country were a \u201cmoderate\u201d alternative.<\/p>\n

Leaked documents show that ARK was responsible for coordinating the Syrian National Coalition\u2019s media office. One such file notes that ARK delivered explicit \u201cmedia handling advice around the chemical weapons attacks in Ghouta\u201d to the Western-backed parallel puppet government.<\/p>\n

Another report describes the group\u2019s work \u201c[facilitating] contact between the Syrian opposition and international media\u2026to address the perception of an uncoordinated opposition by fostering the image of a united front.\u201d The \u201cunited condemnation\u201d of Ghouta was specifically cited as an example of their efforts.<\/p>\n

ARK spreads strategy of chemical attack tension<\/b><\/h3>\n

<\/b>One particularly striking document explains that ARK was employed in 2013 by the British and US governments to deliver \u201ca public safety messaging campaign,\u201d warning residents of opposition-occupied territory about the dangers of unexploded ordnance \u201cand other \u201cremnants of war.\u201d Graffiti stencils and an educational age-relevant activity booklet\u201d targeted at children aged 6 \u2013 10 were employed to produce a \u201ccognitive effect\u201d in select audiences, the document notes.<\/p>\n

The campaign\u2019s implementation was \u201caccelerated after the chemical weapons attack in Ghouta\u2026 to ensure the message had been disseminated before any international intervention,\u201d the file reveals. This indicated the effort was conducted in expectation of a Western military assault that seemed inevitable later that year.<\/p>\n

Even after the intervention failed to materialize, pro-opposition content was still circulated throughout Syria by ARK\u2019s \u201cextensive in-country network, which included stringers, media activists,\u201d and members of the White Helmets, or Syrian Civil Defence \u2014 which the company also claimed credit for creating.<\/p>\n

ARK clearly knew its propaganda had significant real-world impacts, documents show. In submissions to the Foreign Office, the group boasted of how a documentary \u201con the indefatigable spirit of a struggling female protestor\u201d it produced for broadcast for the Gulf monarchy-owned outlets Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, and Orient TV led to \u201cthe eruption of anti-regime protests\u201d in Idlib, where \u201cprotestors chanted her name.\u201d<\/p>\n

The British intelligence contractor also produced documentaries promoting the White Helmets, such as \u201cDigging for Life\u201d, which racked up hundreds of thousands of YouTube views. The White Helmets were also marketed as heroes to Syrian youth.<\/p>\n

In a four-minute cartoon entitled \u201cGoal to Syria<\/a>,\u201d the group can be seen rescuing a child trapped in rubble. At one stage, an adult character barks: \u201cfirst they bombed us with chemicals, and now barrel bombs!\u201d ARK was conspicuously keen to promote the risk of these attacks in occupied territory, both on and offline. In one file, the group bragged that a \u201cchemical weapons information poster\u201d which it circulated on Twitter \u201creached a primary audience of 700,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

These efforts were ostensibly intended to \u201ceducate people about the best ways to respond to chemical weapons attacks.\u201d This supposed educational campaign of course demonized the Assad government among captive populations in Syria, and created a perpetual sense of threat, which could be exploited to create hysteria for propaganda purposes, as the response to the April 2018 Douma incident amply underlined.<\/p>\n

A suppressed OPCW investigation<\/a> of the alleged chlorine attack in Douma reveals that when residents suffering from dust inhalation due to government shelling of the city were taken to a local medical facility, a nameless individual \u201cnot from the hospital\u201d burst in shouting \u201cChemical! Chemical!\u201d Immediately, \u201cpanic ensued\u201d, with patients being undressed, washed, and given \u201cinappropriate treatment\u201d based on the individual\u2019s false warnings.<\/p>\n

Strikingly, the report revealed that \u201csome medical staff who were interviewed only heard about the alleged chemical attack from videos circulating on the internet or from other people, a couple of days after the alleged attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the medical staff\u2026emphasized that the symptoms of the casualties were not consistent with those expected from a chemical attack,\u201d the censored report revealed. \u201cThey also reported not having [treated] casualties of chemical weapons and some witnesses mentioned not being aware of any chemical attacks in Douma or Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2018 New York Times article<\/a> indicates such scaremongering was not restricted to the hospital in Douma. Per the outlet, once government forces attacked, \u201cpeople started shouting in the streets, \u2018Chemicals! Chemicals!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The ensuing panic would no doubt be of assistance to opposition elements seeking to stage a chemical weapons attack in the city, which the OPCW\u2019s suppressed investigation into the incident suggests is precisely what happened.<\/p>\n

Syrian proxy war bleeds into Ukraine<\/b><\/h3>\n

A particularly remarkable passage in a leaked 2015 Foreign Office document establishes explicit terms of a secret operation to fund anti-Assad \u201cgrassroots media activism\u201d by opposition figures \u201cwho share the UK\u2019s vision for a future Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting rid of Assad\u2019s chemical weapons\u201d was initially one of London\u2019s key \u201cpriorities\u201d following the conflict\u2019s outbreak, the file reveals, although the issue had been \u201clargely been resolved since the priorities were set.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under strict OPCW and UN supervision, all Syria\u2019s declared chemical weapons were surrendered and destroyed<\/a> in 2014. The excerpt is supremely striking because it demonstrates that privately, London knew at the highest levels this objective had been legitimately completed, and there was no threat of government chemical weapon use. But in public, British officials continued voicing grave doubts<\/a> that Assad had indeed handed over the country\u2019s entire arsenal.<\/p>\n

The contradiction could be explained by the fact that chemical weapons attacks in Syria continued apace after August 2014<\/a>, when the OPCW determined all Syria\u2019s chemical weapons stocks had either been deactivated beyond use, or removed from the country<\/a> by international monitors. As such, it was necessary to concoct a cover story for how these strikes kept happening \u2014 and why the opposition was not responsible.<\/p>\n

The skepticism from within Western halls of power about the Syrian opposition\u2019s narrative on Ghouta was a phenomenon which would never be repeated again during the Syrian crisis. Following every purported chemical weapons attack in the country thereafter, Assad\u2019s forces were reflexively blamed, and those who cast doubt on the culpability of Damascus were viciously smeared as conspiracy theorists, war crimes deniers, or worse.<\/p>\n

Following the April 2018 Douma incident, Sky News prematurely terminated<\/a> an interview with senior British Army veteran Jonathan Shaw as soon as he questioned whether the Syrian Arab Army was responsible. After making the obvious observation that there was no motivation whatsoever for government forces to launch a chemical attack in the city, given they were \u201cwinning\u201d with conventional weapons, Shaw\u2019s mic was cut and the host awkwardly segued to the next segment.<\/p>\n

The credulity of mainstream journalists during the Ukraine proxy war has somehow exceeded their woeful record during the Syrian crisis. Nonsensical claims of Russian responsibility for events like the sabotage of the Nord Stream II pipeline and the destruction of the Kakhovka dam have received uncritical amplification. And when the official story collapses, the attacks conveniently tumble down the memory hole.<\/p>\n

It is anyone\u2019s guess what Western governments and spies are suppressing this time around. But as the leaked UK files on Syria show, there is always more to the story than they are willing to reveal.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thegrayzone.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

19 Sep 2023 – US officials suppressed assessments that Al Qaeda\u2019s Syrian wing had an \u201cadvanced\u201d sarin production cell as the US blamed the Assad government for a 2013 chemical weapons attack. Leaked documents show a shadowy British intelligence contractor helped sell the story that Assad was responsible \u2013 and nearly triggered Western intervention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":108049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204],"tags":[703,1189,1749,1138,1748,1284,1113,91,2571,112,413,639,70],"class_list":["post-244815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-syria-in-context","tag-al-qaeda","tag-chemical-weapons","tag-chemical-weapons-attack","tag-fake-news","tag-fake-report","tag-false-flag","tag-hoax","tag-nato","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-pentagon","tag-syria","tag-uk","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244815"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244832,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244815\/revisions\/244832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}