French General: Syrian government unlikely to be behind 2013 Ghouta chemical weapon attack

Sputnik
Wed, 24 Aug 2016 18:46 UTC

© REUTERS/ Yaseen Al-Bushy

Syrian government forces are unlikely to be behind the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, Francois Delattre, a French Army general and an analyst with the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), told Sputnik on Wednesday.

Debates over the Ghouta attack incident resurfaced earlier in the day after Syria's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Bashar Jaafari said in an interview that the attack was organized by French intelligence in an effort to divert UN inspectors' attention from another incident caused by the opposition.

"I would prefer not to think that French special forces were involved in the chemical weapons operation, and even about them stating that [Syrian President] Bashar Assad used them in Ghouta. According to the information available, the weapons were inspected by UN experts and it was found that they were deployed in areas which Assad's forces could not have accessed by definition," Delattre said.

The international community has struggled to establish the side responsible for the attack, with the UN Security Council's Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), set up in 2015, due to publish its findings by the end of August. Despite the lack of conclusive evidence, a number of governments, including France, the United Kingdom and the United States, were quick to blame the Syrian government for the incident.

However, the French government's reaction was not based on expert assessments, instead following media reports of the attack, which were biased and published by organizations lacking ethical credibility, Delattre stressed.

"Furthermore, photographs and pictures provided by those who said that it was Bashar Assad who launched the missiles indicate that they were not launched by the military in the full sense of the word. I always had many doubts about the origin of the Ghouta attacks, including its technical aspects, as I have personally dealt with missiles and I know how they work," he said.

In August 2013, an unprecedented chemical weapons attack which killed more than 1,300 civilians took place in Ghouta, a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus. Militants and Assad's government blamed each other for the attack.

A mission to eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal was announced after the deadly gas attack. Moscow urged Damascus to place its chemical weapons under international control, and Syria agreed to the Russian initiative.

Comment: Another French General, Dominique Trinquand, hints that the Syrian opposition could have been behind the attack:

"There really were chemical weapons. The question is, what happened to these chemical weapons: whether they were completely destroyed, or the rebels were able to capture them and use them. And in this case the Syrian government would be primarily responsible for that because it had failed to keep it. And secondly, the responsibility, of course, also lies on those who had used chemical weapons, namely the opposition, if it was them who'd done it," he said.

But, the question then becomes, how did the Syrian opposition get access to chemical weapons. Gen. Trinquand seems to think the weapons would have been stolen from the Syrian government, but there isn't any proof of that. It could easily be claimed that the opposition was given chemical weapons by sources from the West and then used to attack and demonize Syria. The Syrian representative to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari, has accused French Intelligence of being behind the attack:

"The use of chemical weapons in the Damascus area was meant to prevent Dr. Åke Sellström [the head of the weapons inspectors] from going to Aleppo because [France] knew who had used chemical weapons in Aleppo."

He elaborated on his accusations in an exclusive interview with Sputnik:

"The case with chemical weapons was initially fabricated to exert pressure on the Syrian government. After the first chemical gas attack on Khan al-Asal in Aleppo, I went to the Secretary-General (UN approx.) to request assistance to the Syrian government in investigation for answering if there actually was a chemical attack and who was behind it?"
[...]

"Three hours later after consultation with the countries of the UN Security Council, he came back to me and said, 'Tell your government that I will assist and sent a delegation of experts who will be engaged in investigating the chemical attack in Khan al-Asal.'"

However, according to Jaafrey, the Secretary-General added that he will not be able to assist in determining the party behind the attack.

"From that moment, it became clear that the UN Security Council members are interested in keeping the party behind the attacks unnamed due to certain political circumstances," Jaafrey said.
[...]
The purpose of the Huta attack was to distract from Khan al-Asal, to create obstacles to keep Selstrum from traveling there, as well as to focus everyone's attention on Damascus. The plan was a success, as Dr. Selstrum has not yet visited Khan al-Asal, according to Jaafrey.

"According to the French sources and according to the book 'Road to Damascus'the famous French journalists Georges Malbruno and Christian Shesno have documented evidence to prove the involvement of the former French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, in the Eastern Guta tragedy near Damascus," Jaafrey told Sputnik.

"At the moment, we have sent hundreds of letters to the UN Security Council, the Commission of Inquiry under 1540 and to the mission of fact-finding and joint investigation. All of them were created after the incident in Khan al-Asal in the Eastern Guta and near Damascus. In our letters there was transparent information," the representative said.

However, the UN Security Council member states either ignored the data, or accused it of being unreliable. They did not pass the data to the media, nor did they mention it in their statements. "This was due to the fact that the party behind these chemical attacks has the support of these countries," Jaafrey said.

As we can see now, the chemical weapons attack in 2013 that was used by the West as a prime example to remove Assad from power was another false flag set up to further US imperial designs. There is no proof that Assad gassed his own people, while it's likely that the proxy army created by the West are the ones responsible.

See also:

• Syria: Assad not responsible for Ghouta gas attack, says freed hostage Pierre Piccinin
• Saudi backed Syrian rebels admit gas attack is a result of mishandling chemical weapon
• Mother Agnes Mariam: The chemical attacks in East Ghouta used to justify a military intervention in Syria
• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister blasts U.N. report on Syria chemical weapons attack as "politicized, preconceived and one-sided"
• U.S. 'planned to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad'
• OPWC report: U.S.-backed rebels used chemical weapons, not Bashar al-Assad
• Yes, the Syrian rebels DO have access to chemical weapons
• 'Chemical attack in Damascus' a staged event? All videos of alleged event were uploaded to YouTube day BEFORE attack supposedly took place
• 'Staged and scripted': Mother Agnes finalizes chronology of Damascus chemical attack