Douma attack

 Douma attack (non-event)

White Helmets blame the Syrian Arab Army
Date	7 April 2018
Location	Douma,  Syria
Interest of	Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, Chloe Hadjimatheou, Ian Henderson (OPCW), David Malcolm Nott

On 7 April 2018, an attack in the Syrian city of Douma reportedly killed at least 70 people.

The Douma attack was a suspected chemical attack, as on-site medics said exposure to chlorine gas and sarin nerve agent killed the victims.

Attribution

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon discussing chemical weapons

The attack was attributed to the Syrian Army by rebel forces in Douma, NGO aid and medical workers there, as well as by the United States and its allies.

The statements from the Russian government and military were contradictory: at one instance they said that there was no chemical attack; that the video evidence for it was staged by the White Helmets and British intelligence as a pretext for foreign intervention or that a chemical attack did happen, but that it was perpetrated by the al-Qaeda rebels themselves.

Retribution

On 14 April 2018, the United States, France and the United Kingdom carried out a series of military strikes against multiple government sites in Syria.

Didn't happen

On 20 January 2020, a former lead investigator for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) testified at the UN that no scientific evidence exists to support claims that a chemical gas attack took place in Douma, Syria, in April 2018.

Ian Henderson, who worked 12 years for the international watchdog body, served as the OPCW’s inspection team leader and engineering expert and assisted in the fact-finding-mission (FFM) in Douma.

Speaking before a UN Security Council session, Henderson said:

“We had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred,” referring to the FFM team in Douma, adding that the evidence he compiled “provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack.”

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Max Blumenthal	“The White Helmets are known around the world for rescuing civilians in Syria. But the recent death of its founder, James Le Mesurier, and an unfolding cover-up at the OPCW of an apparently staged chemical weapons incident, has shed new light on the group’s shadowy role in the Syria proxy war. We speak to The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal, whose reporting has exposed the White Helmets’ ties to jihadists groups and its use as a PR tool for Western military intervention in Syria. Blumenthal explains that the White Helmets group (originally known as ARK<a href="#cite_note-5">[5]</a>) was founded and trained in Turkey and financed by UK, US, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In Operation Timber Sycamore, and in conjunction with Al-Qaeda and ISIS, the White Helmets were tasked with carrying out regime change ("transition") in Syria and then occupying the country ("stabilisation"). Many slick videos of the work of the White Helmets were produced and in one they are described by British journalist John Cantlie as the Islamic State Fire Brigade.”	Max Blumenthal Aaron Maté
Riam Dalati	“Sick and tired of activists and [Syrian] rebels using corpses of dead children to stage emotive scenes for Western consumption. Then they wonder why some serious journos are questioning part of the narrative,”	Riam Dalati	February 2019

 

Event

Event
Douma attack

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Douma ‘attack’ witnesses speak at Russia-called OPCW briefing at The Hague	Article	26 April 2018		Halil al-Jaish who tended to people at the Douma hospital that day, told the press conference that some of the patients had indeed experienced respiratory problems. The symptoms, however, were caused by heavy dust, which engulfed the area due to recent airstrikes, and no one showed any signs of chemical warfare poisoning.
Document:FCO Disinformation update: Salisbury and Syria	review	26 December 2018	Integrity Initiative Andy Pryce	UK Foreign Office email, presumably to trusted pro-government journalists, with information as 'background for your own work'. Cliff notes on Douma, Skripal etc.
Document:Robert Fisk visits the Syria clinic at the centre of a global crisis	Wikispooks Page	17 April 2018	Robert Fisk	"A Syrian colonel I came across behind one of these buildings asked if I wanted to see how deep the tunnels were. I stopped after well over a mile when he cryptically observed that 'this tunnel might reach as far as Britain'. Ah yes, Ms May, I remembered, whose air strikes had been so intimately connected to this place of tunnels and dust. And gas?"
Document:The Stench of Imperialism: The Statement of Theresa May	Article	20 April 2018	Christopher Black	British Prime Minister Lies to the Nation on Friday 13 April 2018
Document:The World: What is Really Happening	blog post	25 May 2019	Craig Murray	Alleged nerve gas attack in Syria - Amanda Martin tweets to George Monbiot: "Don't you smell a set up here though? Craig Murray doesn't think Assad did it."
Document:What is the point of tourists' checks and tests if migrants can just walk into Dover?	article	5 June 2021	Peter Hitchens	A blog post outlining the illogical policy of lockdown measures in the pandemic era, followed by sections about political correctness, and the Douma attack whistleblowers and Wikileaks.
File:Henderson-Testimony-UN.pdf	Transcript	10 February 2020	Ian Henderson (OPCW)	Transcript of the testimony of ex-OPCW inspector Ian Henderson before the UNSC on 20 January 2020 about the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria on 18 April 2018, and the subsequent OPCW report about it.

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 18 April 2018.
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