Bild am Sonntag cites high-level German surveillance source suggesting Syrian president was not personally behind attacks.© David Mcnew/GettyA anti-Syria strike demonstration in LA. German paper Bild am Sonntag has cited information saying the Syrian president did not personally order chemical attacks, but this does not exonerate his regime
President
Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous requests from his military commanders to use chemical weapons against regime opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported , citing unidentified, high-level national security sources.
The intelligence findings were based on phone calls intercepted by a German surveillance ship operated by the BND, the German intelligence service, and deployed off the Syrian coast, Bild am Sonntag said. The intercepted communications suggested Assad, who is accused of war crimes by the west, including foreign secretary
William Hague, was
not himself involved in last month's attack or in other instances when government forces have allegedly used chemical weapons.
Assad sought to exonerate himself from the August attack in which hundreds died. "There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people," he said in an interview with CBS.
But the intercepts tended to add weight to the claims of the Obama administration and Britain and France that elements of the Assad regime, and not renegade rebel groups, were responsible for the attack in the suburb of Ghouta, Bild said.
Comment: Although any information that comes from unnamed sources is usually suspect to the journalistic eye, it is interesting that this one spells out a scenario that is normally foreseen only by the alternative media - in spite of the fact that books of history carry plenty of examples of false flag attacks used as excuses to trigger wars (9-11, anyone?).
The Russians, who are clearly opposed to letting the US start a regional or even global war, obviously know their history and understand that the possibility is real. They also know their enemy and how keen they are to 'make war by way of deception', and probably have real intelligence on what they might do next. By putting the possibility on a news outlet like RT, they may be making a clever attempt to spoil the plan for the CIA, Mossad, or anyone in control of the so-called 'Syrian rebels' to provide an indisputable casus belli for the US or Israel against Syria.
In other words, now that this scenario has been discussed publicly, it is less likely to happen. Perhaps that was the intention.