A senior Russian official reveals that the US plans to organize a provocation in Ukraine with the use of toxic agents while blaming Russia.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops of the Russian armed forces (Russian MoD)
A structure within NATO has planned to supply Ukraine with a large batch of protective equipment, with antidotes for such nerve agents as sarin and soman being in priority, the head of the radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops of the Russian armed forces revealed on Tuesday.
“The Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre has planned to supply Ukraine with a large batch of personal protective equipment … Priority is given to antidotes for organophosphorus poisonous substances such as sarin and soman,” Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov told reporters.
West claims Russia can use mass destruction arms
Kirillov pointed out that the West regularly declares the possibility of Russia using weapons of mass destruction, but such projects have already been implemented more than once by the United States itself.
“We have repeatedly noted that the leadership of Western countries regularly makes provocative statements about the possibility of Russia using weapons of mass destruction,” he said, noting that such projects have already been implemented more than once by the United States itself to reach political goals.
The Russian official recalled one of such cases, when Washington used a test tube containing “washing powder” as a pretext for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which led to the death of more than half a million citizens.
US plans to carry out provocation using toxic agents
In the same context, Kirillov also revealed that the US plans to organize a provocation in Ukraine with the use of toxic agents while blaming Russia.
According to the Russian official, on February 22, an influential US non-governmental organization held a conference on the events in Ukraine, and former US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan claimed that Russian troops planned to use chemical weapons in the area of the special military operation.
“We regard this information as the intention of the United States itself and its accomplices to carry out a provocation in Ukraine using toxic chemicals,” Kirillov indicated, pointing out that Washington hopes that during hostilities it will not be possible to properly investigate the planned chemical provocation.
He warned that in case the provocation does take place, the Russian Defense Ministry will identify and punish the true culprits, underlining that the West mistakenly hopes that the provocation will be successful because the Russian Defense Ministry can identify the country that produced the toxic agent.
US still able to synthesize precursors of BZ agent
Lt. Gen. Kirillov mentioned that the United States is likely to try to use the BZ military incapacitating agent in Ukraine, adding that it retained the ability to synthesize precursors of the agent at the basis of pharmaceutical production facilities in the amount of up to several tens of tonnes per year.
He told reporters that despite the US announcing the complete destruction of BZ stocks back in 1990, the samples remained.
Train with chemicals arrived in Kramatorsk
Elsewhere in his statement, the Russian official revealed that a train carrying a cargo of chemicals arrived in the Ukraine-controlled city of Kramatorsk in Donbass and the cargo was later delivered to the line of contact.
“The Russian Defense Ministry received information that on February 10, 2023, a train arrived in Ukraine (Kramatorsk), in one of the wagons of which there was a cargo of chemicals, accompanied by a group of foreign citizens,” he said.
“The wagon was uncoupled and towed to the territory of the Kramatorsk Metallurgical Plant named after Kuibyshev, where chemicals were unloaded under the control of the security service of Ukraine and representatives of the command of the armed forces of Ukraine,” he added during the briefing.
According to Kirilliov, the cargo consisted of 16 sealed metal boxes, eight of which had a chemical hazard sign — the inscription “BZ” and marking with two red lines — which corresponds to the class of poisonous substances with a temporary detoxifying effect.
“The cargo was placed on US-made armored vehicles, which, as part of the convoy, left for the line of contact,” Kirillov added.
The head of the radiation, chemical, and biological defense troops of the Russian armed forces also revealed that on February 19, 11 wagons with shrapnel ammunition with special markings were unloaded in Kramatorsk, indicating that earlier, such ammunition was modernized in the United States for damaging elements with liquid formulations of irritating substances.
Syria’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh, said that Syria has repeatedly warned that the incorrect and unprofessional track adopted by The OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria on Douma alleged incident will lead to false and null conclusions.
Sabbagh was regretted that the fact-finding committee had not correct the method of its work despite all the demands addressed to it to commit to the rules included in the Chemical Weapons Convention.
“Syria took a strategic decision in 2013 to join the Chemical Weapons Convention and has eliminated all its stockpile in a record time despite difficult conditions the country has been passing through,” Sabbagh said at UN Security Council session on “the Chemical File in Syria.”
He added that Syria has persistently stressed its firm stance to condemn the use of chemical weapons by any one, at any time or place.
The Syrian diplomat recalled Washington’s scenario to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the false pretext to Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, saying that Washington’s crimes in Iraq are imprescriptible.
In a new phase of a multi-year cover-up, the OPCW has accused Syria of a chemical attack in Douma. But to make the case, the OPCW breaks its own rules and offers an argument that its own findings undermine.
In the latest chapter of an international cover-up scandal, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has directly accused Syria of committing a deadly chemical attack in the town of Douma. A new report from the chemical watchdog’s Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) alleges that Syrian forces dropped two chlorine gas cylinders and killed 43 civilians on April 7, 2018.
The report received an immediate and unequivocal endorsement from the US Department of State, the British Foreign Office and French Foreign Ministry – the diplomatic branches of the countries that rushed to bomb Syria in response to the events in Douma.
The IIT’s conclusion follows years of refusal by OPCW leaders to account for the suppression of the Douma probe’s initial findings.
The OPCW’s first report, finalized in June 2018 by a separate Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), raised doubts that a chemical attack occurred in Douma. It also left open the possibility that the incident was staged, presumably by insurgents who controlled the area at the time. Leaked documents reveal that this original report was doctored, and, along with other critical material, concealed from public view. The following month, a delegation of US officials lobbied the FFM team to conclude that chlorine gas was used as a weapon in Douma and that the Syrian government was responsible. A follow-up report, released in March 2019, omitted the original’s key findings and endorsed the US-led narrative of a chlorine attack.
The manipulation of the Douma probe was challenged by OPCW inspectors who deployed to Syria for the mission. OPCW Director General Fernando Arias has refused to meet with them or address their concerns.
The US, UK, and France have declared that the IIT report “refutes the Russian claim” that insurgents faked the use of poison gas use in Douma to frame the Syrian government. They also touted what they called “the independent, unbiased, and expert work of the OPCW staff.”
Yet the IIT report fails to address the concerns of the dissenting OPCW staffers who originally investigated the Douma incident. It does not resolve the identified suppression, inconsistencies, and errors across key areas of the probe, including toxicology; chemical analysis; ballistics; and witness testimony. Instead, after burying the original findings and stonewalling calls for accountability, the OPCW has doubled down on the deception in Douma.
This first installment of The Grayzone’s review of the IIT Douma report focuses on the core investigative pillar of chemical analysis, which heavily factors in the IIT’s conclusions.
In Douma, OPCW discovers a Magic Marker
The IIT claims to have confirmed the 2019 Fact Finding Mission’s (FFM) conclusion — which was challenged by the dissenting inspectors — that chlorine gas was “likely” used in Douma, and that there is no evidence of chemical staging.
In Douma, the first gas cylinder was found at an apartment building identified as “Location 2,” where 43 dead bodies were filmed. The bodies were strewn about the floors below a gas cylinder that was positioned atop a crater on the roof. The cylinder, it is alleged, caused the crater and then remained poised over the hole as it dumped its chlorine payload into the rooms beneath. A second gas cylinder was found on a bed at a different apartment building identified as “Location 4”, where no fatalities were reported.
To assert that chlorine gas most definitely struck Location 2, the IIT relies on finding what it calls a “marker” chemical, tetrachlorophenol (TeCP), in a single sample of concrete debris. The presence of TeCP in that sample, the IIT states, “specifically points to the exposure to chlorine gas.”
But to make that case, the IIT violates the OPCW’s own evidentiary protocols, and makes an argument that its own findings undermine.
– The supposedly incriminating concrete sample has appeared out of the blue. The IIT claims that the sample was received and analyzed by an OPCW Designated Laboratory in July 2018. But the OPCW FFM’s March 2019 report – released more than seven months later – makes no mention of this sample’s existence. Nearly four years later, the Douma probe’s most consequential sample is therefore being disclosed for the first time.
– The TeCP-containing sample was not collected by OPCW inspectors. It was instead collected by an unidentified third party in direct violation of the organization’s chain of custody rules.
– The third party that collected the sample is in all likelihood the White Helmets. While claiming to be a neutral rescue organization, they are anything but. The White Helmets closely cooperate with anti-government insurgents in Syria and are funded by foreign states active in Syria’s post-2011 proxy war, including the United States and the UK. The White Helmets have also been credibly accused of staging a chemical decontamination scene in a nearby hospital at the time of the alleged Douma attack.
– In violation of its own protocols, the OPCW gave full evidentiary status to this externally collected sample of uncertain origin. By contrast, a similar sample collected at the same Douma location by the organization’s own inspectors was inexplicably disregarded and not even analyzed.
– The OPCW offers no explanation for these evidentiary breaches. And even if all of them are put to the side, the IIT’s assertion that the sample reveals a chemical weapons smoking gun is contradicted by the OPCW’s own findings. The IIT somehow overlooks that TeCP was also found in a sample from a different location, where no chlorine gas is reported to have been present.
In short, to reach its conclusion that a chlorine gas attack occurred in Douma, the OPCW is relying on a newly introduced, highly dubious sample, and a scientific argument that is fatally flawed.
“Concrete” Proof
The IIT claims that its Douma probe is “based on the findings” of the OPCW’s original Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), which released a final report in March 2019. That report concluded that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that a chemical weapon was used in Douma, which was “likely” chlorine gas. When it comes to the chemical analysis, the FFM based its claims “primarily on the detection of bornyl chloride and/or trichlorophenol” in wood samples, after it had excluded other possibilities like household bleach.
Although the FFM did not name the alleged perpetrator, it strongly suggested the Syrian army.
The FFM’s conclusions were challenged in a leaked letter sent to OPCW chief Fernando Arias in April 2019 by Dr. Brendan Whelan, a veteran OPCW inspector and Douma team member. Whelan was the chief author of the team’s original report and oversaw the scientific investigation that produced it. The letter criticized what Whelan called “unsubstantiated and scientifically irresponsible” findings, and “the way the facts have been misrepresented.”
Nearly four years later, in what amounts to a tacit acknowledgement of Whelan’s objections on the chemical analysis, the IIT has introduced a new line of argument.
The IIT report makes a new case for a chlorine gas attack primarily based on detecting what is described as a “marker” chemical called tetrachlorophenol, or TeCP. According to the IIT, “the presence of TeCP clearly points to chlorine gas as being the chlorinating agent present at the scene, and in very high concentrations.” The IIT additionally claims that the detection of TeCP helps determine that the chlorine gas came from the two cylinders found in Douma, and negates the possibility that the incident was staged.
These are very different justifications to those contained in the March 2019 FFM report. For example, the FFM in that report rejected any staging with bleach on the grounds that “there were no visible signs of a bleach agent or discoloration due to contact with a bleach agent.” One of the known OPCW whistleblowers has rejected this argument as “tenuous and unscientific.” By omitting it in its latest report, the IIT apparently agrees.
At Location 2, the apartment building where the 43 dead victims were filmed, the key TeCP chemical was identified in just one sample. According to the IIT, it comes from concrete debris collected on April 8 2018 “in the room under the crater and the cylinder.”
But the sample’s path from purported collection in April 2018 to purported smoking gun in January 2023 raises multiple red flags.
The sample now said to contain the incriminating TeCP is conspicuously absent in the OPCW’s March 2019 final report on Douma. A full list in that report of the “samples collected or received by the Fact-Finding Mission” makes no mention of the IIT’s newfound sample.
Yet according to the IIT, the TeCP sample was “first received and analysed by an OPCW designated laboratory on 24 July 2018.” Taking that timeline at face value, an obvious question arises: why was this critical sample not considered of interest – or even acknowledged — in the March 2019 final report? The IIT makes no effort to answer this question, or to explain how such a consequential sample was not disclosed until now.
March 2019: A full list in the Douma FFM’s final report of the “samples collected or received by the Fact-Finding Mission” makes no mention of the IIT’s newfound smoking gun sample.January 2023: despite not being mentioned in the March 2019 FFM report, the IIT claims that the TeCP sample was “first received and analysed by an OPCW designated laboratory on 24 July 2018.”
The IIT’s supposed smoking gun becomes even more suspect when we learn how it was obtained.
The all-important TeCP sample is not only missing from the OPCW’s March 2019 final report; it was also not collected by the OPCW. The IIT states that the sample was “collected by a third party” on April 8th 2018, days before the OPCW inspectors even arrived in Syria.
The IIT claims that it was “able to reconstruct” the sample’s chain of custody “between the date it was collected and the date it was first received” in July 2018. But as The Grayzone has previously reported, the OPCW’s use of external actors to collect chemical samples in Syria violates its foundational rules, which require full control of the chain of custody from start to finish.
If a “sample was not under OPCW custody” at any point during a mission, OPCW policy states that it “will not be accepted for OPCW verification purposes.” As a spokesperson explained in 2013, the OPCW “would never get involved in testing samples that our own inspectors don’t gather in the field, because we need to maintain chain of custody of samples from the field to the lab to ensure their integrity.”
In Douma and other probes by the OPCW in Syria before it, that bedrock policy has been quietly discarded.
If a “sample was not under OPCW custody,” OPCW policy states, it “will not be accepted for OPCW verification purposes.” (QDOC/LAB/WI/OSA3)
The IIT does not name the “third party” that collected the concrete sample, but it is undoubtedly a group known as the White Helmets. In a public statement on the IIT report, the White Helmets claimed that they “collected samples” in Douma “and submitted them to the OPCW.” As The Grayzone reported last year, the OPCW has used the White Helmets to collect samples and other purported evidence in multiple Syria chemical weapons probes.
In enlisting the White Helmets, the OPCW has not only flouted its own evidentiary protocol, but partnered with a non-neutral actor. The White Helmets extensively cooperate with armed anti-government insurgents, prompting one Syrian Al Qaeda leader to describe their members as “hidden soldiers.” The group is also funded by the same foreign state belligerents, including the US, that armed the insurgency and bombed Syria over the Douma allegations. According to witness testimony and several media sources, including a BBC journalist who conducted a lengthy investigation, the White Helmets staged a chemical decontamination scene in a Douma field hospital around the time of the alleged chemical attack.
The IIT’s reliance on a previously undisclosed sample provided by a third party is additionally called into question by yet another unexplained decision. The OPCW’s Douma team collected an almost identical sample from the exact same spot at Location 2, yet did not analyze it. The IIT describes the extraordinarily useful TeCP sample as having been taken from concrete located “in the room under the crater and the cylinder.” Yet the OPCW’s March 2019 final report shows that the watchdog’s own inspectors also collected concrete located “in the room under the cylinder.” (Entry #28, p. 90).
Whereas the OPCW did not analyze the concrete sample that it collected in Douma, it inexplicably did analyze the sample collected from the same place by an external source. That this previously unknown sample happened to produce the OPCW’s newfound smoking gun is either an extraordinary coincidence, or yet another deception.
March 2019: the OPCW FFM’s final report shows that the watchdog’s own inspectors collected concrete located “in the room under the cylinder.” Yet the IIT relied on an externally collected, previously undisclosed sample from the same location instead.
The New Smoking Gun
The IIT’s inexplicable reliance on a previously undisclosed sample whose collection was outsourced to an external actor directly tied to armed insurgents is but one glaring aspect of a report shot through with flaws. Putting aside the sample’s suspicious timeline and compromised chain of custody, the significance of the analytical findings assigned to it does not pass muster.
The IIT authors report that chemicals they call “highly chlorinated phenols, namely trichlorophenol (TCP) and TeCP, were found in samples that were gathered close to the cylinder that had lodged on the roof of Location 2. Out on the street, three floors below, they found related chemicals which they describe as “low-chlorinated phenols” MCP and DCP. They did not find TeCP or TCP.
The IIT argues that these “highly chlorinated phenols”, TeCP and TCP can only be formed if samples originally containing a chemical called phenol had been exposed to a high concentration of chlorine gas. “The production of TCP, and in particular TeCP from phenolic precursors, requires the presence of a high concentration of chlorine gas,” the report states. (emphasis added)
According to the IIT’s rationale, because only the “low chlorinated phenols,” MCP and DCP, were found in samples taken from the street far from the cylinder on the roof, that means that the concentration of chlorine gas in the street just in front of Location 2 had to have been much lower. This in turn means that the gas release had to have originated on the roof, where the gas concentration would have been highest if the cylinder lodged there were the source:
The pattern of detected chlorinated phenols at the scene is consistent with the hypothesis that the cylinder on the roof was the source of the released gaseous chlorinating agent. This is indicated by the presence of highly chlorinated phenols TCP and TeCP at the sampling locations close to the cylinder (i.e. at the crater on the roof and in the room under the cylinder), as opposed to the least chlorinated phenols MCP and DCP on the street far away from the cylinder.
The finding also leads the IIT to conclude that the TeCP found in the concrete sample from the third-party allows them to “rule out the hypothesis that the incident may have been ‘staged’ using household bleach products or pesticides.” That is because, in their view, “to produce TeCP… [t]he high reactivity of chlorine gas is required.” In other words, bleach is not strong enough to make TeCP – leaving chlorine gas as the cause.
The IIT rules out pesticide as a possible source by considering a hypothesis whereby the TeCP might have originated in the sample because of contact with a pesticide called PCP, which, the IIT says, is normally contaminated with considerable amounts of TeCP. They eliminate that hypothesis, however, because “PCP was not detected in any sample from Location 2,” which they say “strongly indicates that the TeCP was produced in situ” — i.e. where it was detected in Location 2 — “due to the action of chlorine gas.”
In sum, the IIT’s findings regarding the TeCP in the concrete sample at Location 2 purport to resolve three main chemical issues: proving that chlorine gas was used; ruling out a staged event with household bleach; and even establishing that the yellow gas cylinder on the roof of Location 2 was the source of chlorine gas. TeCP, it would seem, is the veritable smoking gun needed to establish a chemical attack in Douma as fact.
All is not as it seems, however. In its attempt to rely on a “new” discovery, the IIT has overlooked what the OPCW already found.
Tunnel Vision
Upon scrutiny, it becomes clear that the Investigation and Identification Team has jumped to baseless conclusions about the TeCP’s significance. The IIT’s claim that the TeCP’s presence “clearly points to chlorine gas… and in very high concentrations” — and debunks any possibility of staging with household bleach — is scientifically unsupported. Moreover, the IIT has somehow missed that its claim to a smoking gun is explicitly contradicted by the OPCW’s own findings.
The report’s authors have also overlooked the fact that their new incriminating chemical TeCP (tetrachlorophenol), along with TCP (trichlorophenol), – what they describe as “the highly chlorinated phenols” — were also found in a Douma sample gathered far from any gas cylinder.
According to the FFM’s March 2019 report, those same chemicals, tetrachlorophenol (TeCP) and trichlorophenol (TCP) were detected in the tunnel deep underneath the field hospital in Douma, identified by the OPCW as “Location 1.” (Final Report, Annex 5, page 49, Entry #26).
When the White Helmets were not busy collecting game-changing samples on the OPCW’s behalf, they were using this same hospital to film dramatic scenes of themselves dousing civilians, including children, with water, claiming they were treating victims of a Syrian government chemical attack. (In February 2019, the BBC’s Riam Dalati claimed that he can “prove without a doubt that the Douma Hospital scene was staged.” He fell silent immediately after his astounding claim and has not released his reporting).
Sample taken from the tunnel underneath the hospital at Location 1 (FFM Report, Annex 5)
Recall that the IIT has just claimed that for TeCP and TCP to form “in situ,” it “requires the presence of a high concentration of chlorine gas.” Recall also, that the IIT dismissed the possibility that the TeCP found at Location 2 could have come from the pesticide PCP, because no PCP was found in the sample where TeCP was found. The same argument applies to the tunnel sample, where no PCP was found either.
There have been no reports of any chlorine attack or chlorine gas release in the tunnel beneath the hospital, let alone in “high concentration.” Because of the distance of the tunnel from the two gas cylinders — and contradicting the IIT’s own logic — the presence of TeCP and TCP in the tunnel sample cannot have been a result of exposure to chlorine gas, yet alone exposure to high concentrations of it, from an alleged chlorine gas attack on April 7 2018.
If the TeCP found in the tunnel did not come from pesticides, or did not result from exposure to high concentration of chlorine gas, what was its source? Chlorinated water or the natural environment are among several possibilities. TeCP clearly has other sources, and is not the unique “marker” of chlorine gas that the IIT has deemed it to be. As such, it cannot be used as a diagnostic tool for chlorine gas exposure in the Douma investigation, and the IIT’s argument collapses.
Engaging the experts
To reach its findings about the TeCP, the IIT claims that it “engaged a well-established chemist with specific expertise in the analysis of chlorine markers.” This supposed expert has only established a need for the IIT to engage in a little scientific curiosity – specifically to read the OPCW’s own lab results, which undermine the explosive conclusions that the IIT report has drawn.
The same need could be identified for an OPCW leadership that has refused to address the complaints of the original Douma team whistleblowers.
In an April 2019 letter to the OPCW Director General Arias, Dr. Brendan Whelan, the FFM team’s scientific coordinator and chief author of the original report, flagged multiple issues that take on newfound significance in light of the recent IIT report.
The March 2019 final report, Whelan wrote, “altered” the “key conclusions” of the June 2018 original report, even though “no substantive or valid new information, particularly with respect to the sampling and analysis results, has been gathered since.” Additionally, the OPCW “prioritised the analysis of samples… for which no chain of custody could be assured,” thereby downgrading “samples which had been collected by the FFM team and therefore had full chain of custody.” Finally, Whelan argued that the OPCW’s conclusions about the samples are “unsubstantiated and scientifically irresponsible given the information the team possessed.”
Nearly four years later, the OPCW has responded to the scientific and ethical violations breaches that Whelan identified by committing even more. The result is an IIT report that offers a disqualifying chain of custody, conclusions contradicted by the OPCW’s own information, and a newfound smoking gun that backfires in spectacular fashion.
Aaron Maté is a journalist and producer. He hosts Pushback with Aaron Maté on The Grayzone. In 2019, Maté was awarded the Izzy Award (named after I.F. Stone) for outstanding achievement in independent media for his coverage of Russiagate in The Nation magazine. Previously, he was a host/producer for The Real News and Democracy Now!.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani advised neighboring countries to revisit their ties with the Zionist entity, not ruling out attacks against the ‘Israeli’ regime given its history in the region.
Referring to the recent anti-Iranian resolution issued at the UN Human Rights Council, Kanaani said the Islamic Republic will never cooperate with a such fact-finding mission on alleged human rights issues.
“Within the framework of its national responsibilities, the Islamic Republic [of Iran] has formed a national committee with the presence of experts, lawyers, and official and unofficial representatives, in the sense that it believes in its inherent and national responsibility,” the spokesperson stated, adding that the country is carrying out duties and comprehensive investigation in this regard.
“Therefore, the hasty use of human rights mechanisms and political approaches are rejected and will not contribute to the concept of human rights.”
The spokesman appeared on Monday with a chemical mask in his weekly press conference in reference to Germany’s support in the war imposed on Iran by Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s regime [1980-1988] and the provision of chemical weapons by the German government to the Saddam regime.
Saddam Hussein’s regime had no obstacles in using weapons and chemical bombs against the Iranians during the war, Kanaani said, adding that the western governments, including the German government, gave the chemical substances to the Iraqi Baath regime, and many crimes were committed against the people of Iran and Iraq with these weapons and equipment.
“The United Nations has clarified Germany’s role in arming Iraq with chemical substances, Germany has received 139 warnings from the United Nations regarding the sale of biological and chemical weapons,” Kanaani noted.
“The results of UN reports show that Germany has played an important role in this field, and DER Spiegel magazine has also written about this, and we have always witnessed violations of human rights and women’s rights in Germany,” he went on to say.
Meanwhile, in response to a question about the attack on an ‘Israeli’-owned oil tanker, which the Zionists accused Iran of, the spokesman rejected these accusations and said that false accusations against Iran are the goal of the Zionist regime and its other allies and if Iran does something, it is brave enough to take responsibility for it.
On the level of the Kurdistan region, Kanaani said it is part of the territory of Iraq and the Iraqi government is responsible for the security of the border lines shared by the two countries of Iran and Iraq: “We heard the news that the Iraqi government has decided to deploy its official forces on the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. We hope that this deployment will take place. If the Iraqi government needs technical assistance in this regard, we are ready to help the Iraqi government.”
Regarding the nuclear deal, Kanaani said “The European governments that are part of the deal proved that they want to behave upon the US policies,” adding that “The Americans’ proposal implies that they don’t want to continue the negotiations, but at the same time they keep sending Iran messages.”
General Time opens the countdown for the Americans and the Israelis
The region is on the verge of major transformations in a rapidly changing world, and Palestine is the compas
Solidarity with Iran / the events of the hour in an interview with Brigadier General Dr. Amin Hoteit and the leader, Ihsan Ataya, via the Twitter platform
The Russian Defense Ministry revealed on 14 November that members of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) extremist group are planning to carry out a false flag operation in Syria’s northern Idlib governorate in coordination with the White Helmets, with the aim of pinning the blame on Syrian and Russian forces.
“The Russian military has received information that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists, in cooperation with White Helmets representatives, intend to carry out provocations in the Idlib de-escalation zone,” Major General Oleg Yegorov, the head of the ministry’s Reconciliation Center, said.
Yegorov added that the operation is meant to target densely populated civilian areas within Idlib.
Since the start of the Syrian war, false flag operations and staged attacks have been a common method used by the US-backed opposition in order to push for regime change or attacks against Damascus.
These operations are commonly carried out in coordination with the White Helmets, a western-funded group posing as the Syrian Civil Defense.
The White Helmets – founded in 2014 by a former British intelligence officer – have taken part in street executions, have been spotted operating freely in ISIS-controlled territory, and have even been implicated in organ trafficking networks within Syria.
In April of 2018, Damascus was accused of a chemical attack against civilians in the city of Douma, resulting in illegal US military strikes against Syrian government positions. But just a year later, a report by MintPress News revealed that several journalists from a number of mainstream agencies had come to the conclusion that the Douma attack was staged with the help of the White Helmets.
Russian media also disclosed that year that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concealed the results of its own fact-finding mission that was deployed to Syria to investigate the purported attack in Douma. The report contained information that questioned the alleged attack, and was initially brought to light by an OPCW whistleblower.
In 2017, a deadly chemical attack in Idlib’s Khan Sheikhoun town was also blamed on the Syrian government. Resulting in at least 80 deaths, and taking place at a time when the Syrian army was in an offensive position and had liberated significant swathes of territory, experts suggested that Damascus had no motive in launching the attack.
“With their backs against the wall, they have next to no chance of opposing the regime militarily… such actions make it possible for anti-Assad groups to receive further support,” Günther Meyer, the director of the Research Center for the Arab World at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, said at the time.
Syria gave up all chemical weapons in 2013 and joined the Chemical Weapons Convention, after a sarin attack in the southwestern town of Ghouta left dozens dead. The attack was widely believed to be carried out by the Syrian government, who placed the blame on extremist opposition groups.
Coming one year after the announcement of former President Barrack Obama’s “Red Line” policy, which promised military action against Damascus in the event of a chemical attack, many believed that the opposition took advantage of this, carrying out the sarin attack and blaming it on Damascus.
In 2014, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article citing documents from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which claimed that the Nusra Front Al-Qaeda affiliate – the predecessor of HTS – was in possession of sarin gas at the time of the attack.
According to the Russian Reconciliation Center, HTS is not the only group with current plans to carry out false flag attacks.
On 18 September, Yegorov was quoted by Russian media as saying that the CIA-trained Maghawir al-Thawra (MaT) armed group is preparing to launch indiscriminate attacks on residential areas in order to pin them on the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
Syria’s centuries-old refusal to take orders from foreign powers and its resistance to repeated foreign interventions has led to its ‘punishment’ by frustrated imperial forces, says Syria’s Vice Foreign Minister Dr. Bashar Al-Jaafari.
Syria’s centuries-old refusal to take orders from foreign powers and its resistance to repeated foreign interventions has led to its ‘punishment’ by frustrated imperial forces, says Syria’s Vice Foreign Minister Dr. Bashar Al-Jaafari. “We are like Cuba; or perhaps Cuba is like us”, said the veteran diplomat.
That independent history can be traced back to ancient times, when Queen Zenobia broke away from Roman rule. It was inflamed a century ago when Sultan Pasha Al-Atrash led the Great Arab Revolt of the 1920s against the French colonial power. And it rose again with Syria’s defeat of a massive, decade-long proxy war, driven by Washington and other NATO states, “Israel” and some of the Gulf monarchies.
But while Syria, at great cost, has defeated mass terrorism, according to Dr. Al-Jaafari, the “unprecedented” military interventions, occupations and economic war remain. The USA and Turkey, two NATO states, occupy huge swathes of Syrian land in the north and east and the Israeli occupation remains in the south. Each provides safe haven for terrorist groups.
These days Washington does not even bother to deny that it is stealing Syrian oil and wheat. It even signs UN declarations supporting the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Syria, while occupying Syrian land out of spite, to punish and divide the peoples of the region, for the benefit of Israeli and US hegemony.
Syria as an Arab nation once included current-day Iskenderun, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. Colonists tried to crush its Pan-Arab ideology, which rose against the French and the British, leading to the hard-fought renewal of independence in 1947. Dr. Al-Jaafari says Pan-Arabism, which forms the basis of the Syrian Arab Baath Party and other groups (like Nasserites and the SSNP), is a reflection of the region’s Arab-speaking peoples, with a shared history, aspiration and culture.
Further, Syria, almost uniquely in the region, has led the process of separating religion from politics which, in turn, supports its broader, inclusive Arab traditions and historic defense of multiple and rich social communities. Syria’s famous pluralism was attacked by the NATO-sponsored terrorist groups, mainly Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS/DAESH, who abused minority communities while slaughtering anyone who backed the Damascus government.
The country remains under a severe US economic blockade, backed by the European Union, and subject to multiple foreign occupations. Repeated ‘chemical weapons of mass destruction’ scams, false flag massacres, fake claims of ‘freedom and democracy’, ‘moderate armed opposition’ slogans and the demonizing of President Assad were all part of a war to destroy, not just the Syrian government, but the Syrian state.
Dr. Al-Jaafari says that “from day one the Western strategy was based on making Syria a failed state”. That meant undermining Syria’s means of subsistence and strength – wheat, water, oil, the Tabqa dam, irrigation for agriculture, health systems and energy sources. “When you are a failed state, you lose your sovereignty; once you lose your sovereignty they can do to you whatever they want, because there is no state.”
“Our strength,” he says, “was to counter this strategy; and that is why they are extremely upset. We resisted their strategy and they failed It cost them trillions of dollars, eleven years of depriving the Syrian people of their basic needs. But they failed … We won the war, diplomatically speaking … militarily speaking, not yet”.
“The game is over … I think we preserved what is essential, we preserved the state, the country, the dignity, the independence and the political independence. It is costly yes, it has been so costly. But nowadays nobody says that we are wrong.”
Yet they do try to falsify history. If we look at the distorted ‘open source’ site Wikipedia we will see that ‘The Dirty War on Syria’ is listed as the ‘Syrian Civil War’. It is nothing of the sort. It is one of more than 20 proxy wars Washington has driven in the first two decades of this century.
Dr. Al-Jaafari points out that a UN sub-committee on Afghanistan’s Taliban in 2017 listed 101 countries as having exported terrorists to Syria. A number, like Indonesia, had governments friendly to Syria. On top of this, Israelis and the two largest NATO armies still occupy Syria. This is hardly a ‘civil war’.
Even though the Astana process (involving Russia, Iran and Turkey) has made some progress, by helping create ‘de-escalation zones’, Turkey under Erdogan has done tremendous damage to Syria. Dr Bashar says: “the Turkish policy has caused Syria and the Syrian people great damage, great damage.” On top of its support for the terrorist groups, the Turkish government has attacked critical civilian infrastructure.
Syria had an agreement with Turkey on sharing water which committed to passing 500 cubic meters per second, down the Euphrates. Yet for the last 10 years, “they have allowed less than half of this”, causing great damage to the electricity-generating Tabqa dam: “They did the same to a station in Al-Hasakah governate.”
So there have been chronic shortages of water for agriculture, as well as the theft of oil and wheat by the Americans. In Iraq, the situation is even worse. “Now the Iraqis walk in the [bed of the Tigris] river”.
Turkey is part of NATO and “is benefiting greatly from the American wrongdoings in the region… sharing benefits from the chaos that they themselves created.”
The Vice Minister made two points about aid and the refugees. He tells countries saying they want to provide ‘aid’: “We don’t need” your aid. He says Syria needs to rebuild its own capacities, reopening factories and creating employment.
He tells them “lift the sanctions so that the refugees can go back to their villages. “However these countries “know what they are doing … they spent millions of dollars on the refugees so that they don’t go back to their homeland.”
These foreign states use correct words about refugees having “dignified and safe” lives. But their programs serve to keep them forever in the camps. “They will not come back because they don’t have jobs and homes.”
Instead of spending billions of dollars on the refugees, Dr. Al-Jaafari aks, “why not give them all $10,000 each, enough to restart their lives back home? Why not pay them $10,000 once, instead of the same amount every year?”
What the enemies of Syria did to Syria “has gone beyond the threshold”, he says. “In my opinion, they did it … because we did not punish them for what they did in Iraq … that was the biggest mistake ever.”
Yet there have been great geopolitical changes in recent years. “The whole world is shifting”, he says, with the rise of BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and other blocs. “The whole Asian part of the world” has given up on Western-dominated organizations like the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank.
“They don’t believe in that anymore and they want to create alternatives … let me say eastern alternatives, and this is very important.” The geopolitical center is shifting because the west has committed so many errors. This “might be a positive development, it might be a prelude to further confrontation, or it might be both.” In any case, he says, it is a sign that “enough is enough”.
Asked if Syria has applied to join the SCO, Dr. Al-Jaafari replies “of course, we submitted our request … recently.”
From the Russian Mod: “Thanks to unprecedented measures taken by the leadership of the Russian Federation, with the active participation of representatives of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, humanitarian operation to evacuate civilians from Azovstal plant is now complete.”
There still are rumors of high level military in the plant but humanitarian corridors are closed. A group of reportedly about 1,000 soldiers walked out with white flag. The Russians have taken into custody enough people now to be able to stitch together who else is down there. We wait, with a good level of inquisitiveness, for some perp walks.
From the Field: The settlement of Popasna under full control – this is a Big Deal.
A very important strategic settlement, the capture of which breaks the first, most powerful line of defense of Ukraine in the Donbass. We have the first videos from refugees detailing their struggle:
Take a look at this map and it should not be hard to understand why this is a Big Deal.
Snake Island 🐍 near Odessa: not even a little help from our ‘NATO colleagues’ could save the snake and the Russian Mod reports 💥 Near Zmeinyi Island (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1398) the following have been shot down in the air: 1 Ukrainian Su-24 bomber, 1 Su-27 fighter jet, 3 Mi-8 helicopters with paratroopers and 2 Bayraktar-TB2 UAV. The Ukrainian amphibious assault boat Stanislav has also been destroyed. This is a Big Deal.
A series of Warnings from the Russian Mod:
On the occasion of the 77th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War and the many military parades, we can expect Ukie action.
⚠️ Ukrainian armed formations have mined the dam of Kurakhovskaya thermal power plant reservoir (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1403) in Pokrovskiy district of the Donetsk People’s Republic, which the nationalists plan to blow up, blaming “allegedly advancing units of the Russian troops”.
⚠️ The Kiev regime carried out yet another sophisticated actionIn Seversk and Serebryanka settlements of the Donetsk People’s Republic (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1402) to discredit the Russian Armed Forces before the world community. During the provocation, fighters of nationalist battalions dressed in Russian uniforms and driving armoured vehicles with “Z” sign fired on private houses, forcibly took valuables and personal vehicles from people, and physically assaulted civilians who showed the slightest resistance.
Yesterday was a catastrophic day for the Zelensky regime forces:
►Disaster at Snake Island
►Popasnaya lost to the RF
►Azovstal civilian hostages freed
So now Zelensky wants to go all Samson on his own country—with chemicals.
Nevertheless, plans and rehearsals for the parades are ongoing: Dress rehearsal (https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1376) of a military parade was held in Moscow.
The captured Chief of Staff of the Ukraine has this to say: “Ukraine could make concessions in order to end the conflict, the main points are a regime without NATO and a guarantee of non-aggression,” Colonel Dmitry Kormyankov, captive chief of staff of the 36th Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
And is this a signal or was Pyotr Tolstoy just musing about the Polish border?:
“Russia’s military operation in Ukraine won’t end until the country is “completely denazified and demilitarized, so that it no longer poses a threat to the Russian Federation and cannot be transformed into an anti-Russia, as the West has tried to do in the past 30 years,” says (https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2022/05/03/news/russia_intervista_pjotr_tolstoj-348021441/) deputy speaker of Russian parliament Pyotr Tolstoy.
“I think we will stop once we reach the border with Poland,” added the lawmaker, who is also the great-great-grandson of acclaimed Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.
The collective west supplies Rubbish!
Becoming more clear now is that the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance are using the conflict in Ukraine in order to get rid of obsolete and decommissioned weapons. Rubbish is being brought to the Ukraine, and then the Russians destroy it. This is now obvious. The disgusting quality of the Javelin anti-tank missile systems (ATGM) supplied by the United States and the Swedish-British portable anti-tank guided missiles NLAW were recently reported by a prisoner – a former soldier of the Ukrainian army.
Vadim Zholko, a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: “Their Javelin and NLAW grenade launchers, which were very much advertised, showed themselves in practice as they really were. There were misfires. They usually shoot one out of four, ”said the prisoner. The fired projectiles explode at fifty meters before reaching the target, or do not work at all. “That is, there were many of those whose batteries were expired,” the prisoner of war shared his impression of what he saw. The man complained that the training at the training grounds was mainly theoretical – “they showed it in a fast way.” Why misfires regularly occur was not explained to recruits. The reason became clear during the fighting – most of the batches of weapons had an expired shelf life. Cheaper NLAW complexes also turned out to be far from perfect.
Bloomberg reported that Kyiv is losing a week-long supply of weapons every day.
This all indicates that we will see more fighting in spots, but then, seemingly, it will all fall down and the Ukrainian forces will simply stop firing.
The information war is not neglected by Russia, although they fumble. On Friday, the permanent Russian staff to the UN held an informational meeting (Arria Formula) for the UN Security Council. It was not Hollywood (Nebenzya is a serious man, but he is not an actor!). It was heart-wrenching. The outcome is that the UN Security Council could do no less, they were unable to maneuver out of this one and had to agree to a statement to search for a peaceful solution. Even with the United States holding the chairmanship this month, this united action could not be forestalled. As the cauldrons tighten around the fighting Ukrainians, so the cauldrons are tightening around the actions of the very small united west.
❗️ The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (https://t.me/mod_russia_en) held an urgent briefing, (https://t.me/MFARussia/12376) detailing a provocation against the Russian Federation prepared by the USA and NATO with the accusation of using nuclear, biological and chemical weapons
💬 The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation possesses the information related to the preparation of provocations by the United States of America in order to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of using chemical, biological or tactical nuclear weapons.
There are three scenarios to be applied in order to accuse the Russian Federation.
👉 The first one is a ‘staged incident under a false flag’ that is the most probable.
👉 The second one refers to a ‘Maximally covert use of weapons of mass destruction in small volumes’ for neutralising the will power and the capacity to resist within the fulfilment of a particular operational task.
👉 The third and the least probable one is the ‘overt use of weapons of mass destruction at a combat area’.
The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation possesses the information related to the preparation of provocations by the United States of America in order to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of using chemical, biological or tactical nuclear weapons. This plan has already been developed and represents a response to the success of Russia in conducting the special military operation.
▫️Only in March and April senior officials of the Western countries have been making regular provocative ‘warning’ statements. The mass media propagate the points about the possibility of using weapons of mass destructions by Russia.
▫️For example, the National Security Advisor J.Sullivan has commented on Biden’s words that the USA “in kind” to the possible use of weapons of mass destructions by our country. And on February 27 the American permanent representative to the UN Greenfield announced an intention of Russia to use any instruments ‘under a false flag’, including chemical and biological weapons for intimidating the Ukrainian population and the international community.
▫️Against this background, the US State Department considered positively the transfer of up to 400 sets of personal protection equipment, 390 NBC reconnaissance devices and 15 ‘Stryker’ reconnaissance vehicles.
Staged use of WMD is aimed at accusing Russia of using prohibited weapons with the subsequent implementation of the so-called «Syrian scenario», in which the state is subjected to economic and political isolation, as well as exclusion from international organizations, including the UN Security Council.
▫️A possible way forward is to put pressure on the countries loyal to and friendly to the Russian Federation, including India and China, to compel them to impose sanctions on our country.
❗️We would like to recall that the Russian Federation completely destroyed its chemical arsenal on September 27, 2017, which is confirmed by an OPCW certificate. In turn, the United States, with its strong financial, economic and technical potential, is the only country party to the Chemical Weapons Convention that still possesses an impressive arsenal of chemical warfare agents (672.5 tons).
▫️CIA Director Burns’ statement about Russia’s possible use of tactical nuclear weapons is absurd. With the current level of technical equipment of the international nuclear test monitoring system, it is impossible to conceal the use of such weapons. If the CIA director does not understand this, then he is either unprofessional, or he is being misled.
▫️The biological weapons programs in the USSR were completely phased out in 1972. At the same time, the number of U.S. biological laboratories is incomparable to other countries. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Washington controls 336 laboratories in 30 countries, which is of great concern.
To date, the United States is the only state in world history that has used all three types of weapons of mass destruction.
▫️The dropped nuclear bombs during the Second World War on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the use of toxic chemicals in Vietnam and Iraq – all these crimes were not properly assessed by relevant international organizations.
❗️Thus, in an attempt to discredit the special military operation of the Russian troops, the Kiev regime, at the suggestion of the American administration, is able to implement scenarios in the near future that will lead to the death of tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens and cause an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.
The various posts on the Mod Telegram channel starts here:
قد يبدو الاتهام المتبادل بين موسكو وواشنطن في نيات استخدام السلاح الكيميائيّ مجرد تتمة للحرب الإعلامية الدائرة حول المواجهة بينهما في أوكرانيا، لكن الأميركيين والروس يؤكدون أن اتهاماتهما جدية. ومن الطبيعي القول إن هذه التأكيدات باتهام الآخر لا تحسم الاتهام لأي منهما بقدر ما تؤكد نيّة أحد الطرفين بتأكيد الاتهام تأكيد نيّته بالاستخدام، فمن له مصلحة حقيقية بذلك بينهما؟
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قد تستفيد روسيا نظرياً من دب الذعر من استخدام السلاح الكيميائي في صفوف الأوكرانيين، والرهان على ذلك بضرب الحالة المعنوية للجيش الأوكراني ومناصريه، لكن تجربة الروس مع القيادة الأوكرانية تقول بأن درجة تقدير هذه القيادة للمخاطر على شعبها في اتخاذ قراراتها السياسية والتفاوضية معدومة، وأن حساباتها كلها تنطلق من تلبية الخطة الأميركية في الحرب. وفي هذه الحالة سيكون لتأثير استخدام السلاح الكيميائي منح الأميركيين منصة ما يريدون فعله من هذا الاستخدام.
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في واشنطن يسعون لتوريط موسكو بفعل ذلك، وان لم تفعل فيجب تصنيع فعل يمكن نسبته اليهم. وهذا ليس غريباً على تاريخ الأميركيين، فالحديث عن حياة المدنيين مجرد استهلاك للكلام كما يقول تاريخهم الحربي، تحت شعار الغاية تبرر الوسيلة، وهذا ما قالوه عن قنابلهم النووية على ناغازاكي وهيروشيما اليابانيتين، ولا يزالون يقولونه في تبريره، فموت الآلاف ومئات الآلاف أمر هيّن أمام تحقيق هدف.
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الهدف الأميركي واضح، وهو عدا شيطنة روسيا وإسقاطها أخلاقياً وإنسانياً، وتحريك مؤسسات حقوقيّة وقانونيّة لملاحقتها بجرائم حرب، هو هدف سياسيّ اقتصاديّ كبير بحجم السعي لربح الحرب، ولذلك يجب أخذ التحذيرات الروسية على محمل الجد، فقد بدأت تنشر مقالات وتقارير عما يجب على أميركا فعله اذا تمّ استخدام السلاح الكيميائي، والجواب يكفي للقول إنه كافٍ لتفعلها أميركا.
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يقول الأميركيون إنه اذا حصل وتم استخدام السلاح الكيميائي، فإن ذلك يجب أن يسقط آخر ذرائع ألمانيا ومن يريد مثلها مواصلة استيراد الغاز والنفط من روسيا، وأن حجم الضجة التي سيخلفها العمل سيكون كافياً لمحاصرة أي صوت أوروبي يتهرّب من القطيعة مع روسيا في مجال الطاقة، وأن هذا عند حدوثه سيدفع بسعر الروبل إلى الحضيض قبل أن تتمكّن موسكو من اتخاذ إجراءات بديلة لبيع النفط والغاز، وسيرتب تداعيات على النشاط العسكري الروسي حكماً، وعلى التوازن السياسي لنظام الحكم في موسكو، لكنه بالتوازي سيفتح أبواب أوروبا أمام إمدادات النفط والغاز من مصادر بديلة أهمها الغاز الأميركي بأسعار مضاعفة، ما يعني ضخ مئات مليارات الدولارات شهرياً في شرايين الانكماش الاقتصادي الأميركي من جهة، ويحكم القبضة الأميركية السياسية والاقتصادية على أوروبا من جهة موازية.
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التحضيرات الأميركية لضربة كيميائيّة يمكن اتهام روسيا بتنفيذها على الطاولة.
Russia’s Sputnik News reported examples of US war crimes post-WW II.
My own examples follow below. First Sputnik’s:
The July 1950 No Gun Ri massacre occurred one month after Truman’s war of aggression on nonbelligerent, nonthreatening North Korea.
Covered up for nearly half a century, what happened took the lives of around 300 men, women and children.
From December 1968 – May 1969, US forces indiscriminately massacred thousands of North Vietnamese civilians in so-called “free-fire zones” during Operation Speedy Express — to cause maximum numbers of casualties.
In February 1991 near end of Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, civilians and fleeing combatants were massacred along the so-called Highway of Death.
In May 1999 near Korisa, Kosovo, US terror-bombing massacred civilian refugees — ones who unsuccessfully sought shelter out of harm’s way.
In the second battle of Fallujah in November 2004 — during the Second Persian Gulf War — US and UK forces terror-bombed Iraqis with banned weapons, including white phosphorous, incendiary bombs, and radiological weapons.
Thousands were massacred in cold blood, largely civilians.
In October 2015, US forces terror-bombed a Kunduz, Afghanistan hospital on the phony pretext of targeting Taliban fighters.
Dozens were killed, dozens more injured.
During the siege of Mosul, Iraq in 2017, an estimated 40,000 Iraqi civilians were massacred on the phony pretext of combating US created and supported ISIS jihadists.
Similar mass slaughter occurred in the same year against Raqqa, Syria civilians.
US genocides began by mass-exterminating countless millions of Native America to expand the nation from sea-to-shinning sea — by stealing their land, livelihoods and lives.
In his book titled, “A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present,” Ward Churchill explained that the nation’s indigenous population was reduced to at most 3% of its original numbers before it all began — by butchery and other forms of brutality.
During the infamous Middle Passage transatlantic slave trade — the African holocaust — millions perished en route in extreme discomfort.
Around 100 million human beings arriving in America were sold like cattle.
Describing the centuries-long horror, historian Howard Zinn said the following:
US slavery was “the most cruel form in history.”
It reflected a “frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave.”
Post-WW II US genocides occurred against North Koreans, Southeast Asians, Central and Latin Americans, Africans, other Asians, Yugoslavs, Afghans, Yemenis, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians and others.
With no end of it in prospect, unparalleled genocide has been ongoing by kill shots throughout the West and elsewhere since December 2020 — the human toll unknown because of coverup and denial.
If continues longterm, billions may perish out of sight and mind — unwanted people that US/Western dark forces want exterminated to more greatly empower and enrich the privileged few at their expense.
During America’s dirty 1898 – 1902 Spanish-American War against Spain to cede control of the Philippines, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos were brutally slaughtered.
US cutthroat killer general Jacob Smith ordered his troops to:
“Kill and burn.”
“This is no time to take prisoners.”
“The more you kill and burn, the better.”
“Kill all above the age of ten.”
Then “turn (the country into) a howling wilderness.”
Few people anywhere suffered longer, more horrifically with anguish than Haitians for over 500 years and still counting.
They endured genocidal oppression, slavery, despotism, colonization, reparations, embargoes, sanctions, deep poverty, starvation, untreated diseases, unrepayable debt, and natural calamities unprotected.
Along with strategic bombing to destroy an adversary’s economic and military might, US terror bombings targeted civilians to break their morale, cause panic, weaken an invented enemy’s will to fight, along with inflicting mass casualties and punishment.
Geneva and other international laws prohibit it.
The Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907 Hague IV Convention’s Article 25 states:
“The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or building which are undefended is prohibited.”
Fourth Geneva protects civilians in time of war.
It prohibits violence of any kind against them and requires treatment for the sick and wounded.
The 1945 Nuremberg Principles forbid “crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
These include “inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war,” including indiscriminate killing and “wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.”
In virtually all US wars of aggression against invented enemies, the above and similar war crimes occur with disturbing regularity.
During the firebombing of Dresden, Germany in February 1945 — when what Russia calls its Great Patriotic War was virtually won — the US and UK gratuitously incinerated around 100,000 city residents.
The morally indefensible high crime was repeated against Tokyo the same month in similar fashion after virtual surrender by imperial Japan was rejected by Franklin Roosevelt. surrendered and accepted defeat.
In August 1945, Harry Truman gratuitously destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear immolation.
When WW II was virtually over, hundreds of thousands were killed.
To this day, future generations were scarred with birth defects and other serious health issues.
During the post-WW II period, countless millions more were massacred during US imperial wars — accountability for the highest of high crimes never forthcoming.
Genocidal wars were waged against nonbelligerent North Korea, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and worldwide against unwanted people.
US use of chemical, biological, radiological and other banned weapons is well-documented throughout US history.
From smallpox infected blankets against Native Americans to chlorine gas during the US Civil War to today’s chemical, biological, radiological and other banned weapons, anything goes has been official US policy throughout its history.
Deadly dioxin-containing Agent Orange and nerve gas were used by US forces in Southeast Asia.
So were other terror weapons in all US wars of aggression.
It’s not a pretty picture.
The self-styled indispensable state’s history is pockmarked with virtually every type crime imaginable at home and worldwide.
They’ve gone on by endless wars of choice against Native Americans to the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli to the present day at home and abroad worldwide — with no end of them in prospect.
A top Ukrainian official says that Russia’s armed forces have not planned and are not carrying out any attacks on Ukrainian facilities for the storage or production of toxic substances.
Ukrainian forces (Archive)
Russian defense ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov affirmed, on Monday, that a provocation by Ukrainian nationalists resulted in an ammonia leak detected in the vicinity of the Ukrainian city of Sumy.
On his account, the head of Sumy Regional State Administration Dmitry Zhivitsky stated earlier in the day that an ammonia leak was discovered at a chemical facility, adding that the incident occurred at 4:30 a.m. local time (2:30 GMT).
Russia’s defense ministry issued, on Saturday, a warning about the threat of provocations with toxic chemicals in the area by Ukrainian nationalists backed by the US and several EU countries in order to put the blame on the Russian army.
“In the city of Sumy, a planned provocation by Ukrainian nationalists, about which the Russian Ministry of Defense officially warned a few days ago, was carried out at night,” he told reporters.
The official reiterated that Russia’s armed forces have not planned and are not carrying out any attacks on Ukrainian facilities for the storage or production of toxic substances.
“The coordinates of all such facilities and data on poisonous substances stored there on the territory of Ukraine were obtained by us during the capture of combat documentation of the 4th brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard,” he stressed.
He went on to say that Kiev is directly liable for any incidents involving Ukrainian facilities that store toxic substances.
At the beginning of this month, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukraine’s Azov battalion is preparing for a provocation that could lead to radioactive contamination in Kharkov.
The Russian Defense Ministry Spokesperson Igor Konashenkov pointed out that Kiev wanted to accuse Russia of creating a radiation focus at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP).
On March 9, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that Ukrainian nationalists struck Chernobyl NPP’s power supply.
It is worth mentioning that the Russian Defense Ministry has frequently warned that Ukrainian military and nationalist groups are planning grave provocations to blame on Moscow. So far, the West has ignored Russia’s worries and warnings.
There’s no credible reason why Russia would employ chemical weapons when it already has uncontested military superiority in all warfighting domains, not to mention when it’s already coming under unprecedented full-spectrum pressure and being recklessly accused of staging precisely such a false flag. On the other hand, Kiev’s fascists literally have nothing to lose since their defeat is inevitable, hence why they’re inclined to use such weapons of mass destruction out of desperation in a last-ditch attempt to blame the potential incident on Russia in order to get the US-led West to militarily intervene in their support.
The US-led West is wildly speculating without any proof whatsoever that the Russian Armed Forces (RAF) are plotting a chemical weapons false flag in Ukraine, claims that Moscow officially rejected on Friday. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs pushed back by sharing evidence with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UNSC showing that it’s actually Kiev’s fascist-nationalist forces that are gearing up to do this instead. According to their statement, “Radical Ukrainian groups under the control of the representatives of American special services have prepared several potential scenarios of the use of toxic chemicals in order to carry out various types of provocations. The objective of such actions is to accuse Russia of the use of chemical weapons against the civil population and violating its obligations, including those under the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
The global public is understandably confused since each side is accusing the other of this scenario, which ominously suggests that something of the sort might horribly transpire sometime soon. It’s therefore important to analyze the military-strategic dynamics at play in order to more confidently predict who’d be responsible if this actually comes to pass. The American accusations that have been echoed by their fascist proxies in Kiev aren’t credible when one takes the time to actually think about them. Russia’s military superiority over its neighbor is undeniable and nobody questions the fact that the RAF are much larger than the Ukrainian ones (UAF), their fascist-nationalist militias, and the thousands of mercenaries that they’re urgently pleading with to join the fray. Furthermore, Kiev is utterly disappointed that US President Biden reportedly killed Poland’s plan to send fighter jets to them via Rammstein Air Base.
There’s also no chance of NATO daring to impose a so-called “no-fly zone” over Ukraine that would necessitate first destroying the RAF’s air capabilities, including possibly within Russia itself. President Putin very clearly warned during his 24 February address to the Russian people announcing his country’s specialmilitaryoperation in Ukraine that the RAF will regard any third party that directly interferes in its activities there as a hostile force that will be decisively responded to in self-defense. These developments doom the UAF to defeat since they simply cannot hope to beat back the RAF without such significant foreign military assistance, and even then, it would be nigh impossible since the introduction of such forces into the conflict zone could very likely trigger the Third World War that President Putin just narrowly averted through the decisive timing of his country’s special operation there.
Faced with such a predicament yet still politically unwilling to comply with Russia’s reasonable national security red line requests, it’s all the more likely that Kiev’s increasingly desperate forces might be inclined to stage a chemical weapons false flag as a last-ditch attempt to blame the RAF for it in order to compel the US-led West into decisively intervening in their support despite that risking World War III. There’s already an established pattern of false flags committed by Kiev in this conflict, from the Snake Island psy-op to the Mariupol maternity & children’s hospital bombing, the latter of which was exposed by Russian diplomats at the UN the other day. If the US-led Western “logic” is that Russia warning about a chemical weapons false flag supposedly suggests that it’s about to commit precisely that, then Pentagons spokesman Kirby’s earlier warning about Russian false flags suggests the same vis-à-vis Kiev.
There’s no credible reason why Russia would employ chemical weapons when it already has uncontested military superiority in all warfighting domains, not to mention when it’s already coming under unprecedented full-spectrum pressure and being recklessly accused of staging precisely such a false flag. On the other hand, Kiev’s fascists literally have nothing to lose since their defeat is inevitable, hence why they’re inclined to use such weapons of mass destruction out of desperation in a last-ditch attempt to blame the potential incident on Russia in order to get the US-led West to militarily intervene in their support. This insight suggests that the international community must be on alert for Kiev’s US-backed fascist proxies attempting a chemical weapons false flag in the very near future. Hopefully that scenario won’t come to pass, but if it does, then everyone should immediately suspect the US and Kiev.
Even a ‘limited’ strike against Russian military infrastructure would immediately place the world on an irreversible path to the gravest consequence of all – nuclear war.
‘Syrian chemical attack’ – Ukraine edition coming soon?
Over the past two weeks, media headlines worldwide have been dominated by the Russian military intervention in Ukraine – launched in response to almost nine years of Western provocations, beginning with the CIA and MI6 orchestrated Euromaidan color revolution in November 2013, following then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to suspend an EU trade deal in favor of closer ties with Russia, which in turn would lead the predominantly ethnic Russian Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the eastern Donbass region breaking away from Kiev’s control in April 2014, the catalyst for this secession being the anti-Russian far-right sympathizers that would make up the Western-backed post-Maidan government of Petro Poroshenko.
A near eight-year-long war on both Republics would follow, involving Kiev-supported neo-Nazi factions such as Azov Battalion and Right Sector. The war would eventually lead to an estimated 14,000 deaths, a conflict that Moscow would seek to resolve through diplomatic means via the Minsk Agreements – a federalization solution in which Donetsk and Lugansk would be granted a degree of autonomy whilst still remaining under Ukrainian rule. However, the failure of Kiev to implement its side of the agreements, as well as the ongoing attacks on the ethnic Russians in the Donbass and the inevitability that Ukraine would ultimately go on to become a NATO member and host weapons and troops intended to attack Russia, would ultimately force Moscow into launching a military intervention into its Western neighbor in order to demilitarise and de-Nazify the country.
Two weeks into the conflict, it has become apparent from the corporate media narrative of the ‘Ukrainian resistance’ that the goal of the US and its allies, with little regard for the Ukrainian civilians they claim to care about, is to drag Moscow into a military quagmire in the second-largest country in Europe. This tactic is one with historical usage against the Kremlin: In 1979, at the height of the Cold War, the CIA and MI6 would begin a covert operation of arming and training Islamist fundamentalists, including Osama Bin Laden, known as the Mujahideen, who would go on to wage war on the then-Socialist government of Afghanistan – leading to a ten-year-long Soviet military intervention, something which many commentators have seen as a contributing factor to the subsequent break-up of the bloc in 1991. Indeed, Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to US President Jimmy Carter when Operation Cyclone was launched in 1979, would later recount in a 1998 interview how drawing the USSR into a costly military intervention was a motivating factor in its inception.
Despite the intention of the Neocons and the war lobby to seemingly draw the Russian Federation into an Iraq war-style quagmire, there also appears to be an element who favors an approach that would lead to far more grave consequences – a Libya-style no-fly zone over Ukraine, involving the shooting down of Russian aircraft by NATO, which would undoubtedly trigger a catastrophic third world war involving the use of nuclear weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a newfound darling of the Western media since their coverage of the Russian intervention began, has repeatedly called for the implementation of a no-fly zone over his countries’ skies. World Economic Forum-linked Ukrainian activist Daria Kaleniuk went viral with her plea for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to intervene militarily against Russian forces, and a recent poll by corporate media outlet Reuters found that 74% of Americans supported a no-fly zone over Ukraine – with it remaining unclear on whether those polled were aware of the nuclear apocalypse that such a measure would entail.
Despite this push for Western military intervention in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have made it clear that such a measure is off the table, each citing the global nuclear conflict that would undoubtedly follow as the reason. Though this may seem a reason to be optimistic that the current Ukraine crisis won’t develop into World War III, it does not however rule out the far more hawkish members of the regime-change lobby seeking to carry out a false flag operation in Ukraine, one with the intention of implicating Moscow, and to push public and political opinion even more towards support for a NATO intervention, a tactic with very recent usage.
In 2017, the Syrian Arab Republic had been in the six-year-long grip of a Western-backed regime change operation launched in response to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s 2009 refusal to allow US-allied Qatar to build a pipeline through his country, one that would have undermined his relationship with key-ally Russia. Like the aforementioned Operation Cyclone, Timber Sycamore would see the arming, funding and training of Wahhabi terrorist groups by the West and its allies, with the intention of removing Assad’s secular government and replacing it with a Western-friendly leadership.
In June 2013, Iran and Hezbollah would intervene in the ensuing proxy war at the request of the Syrian government, providing a key role in assisting Damascus in repelling the Western-backed terrorist campaign. What would perhaps be the most decisive factor in turning the tide of the conflict in the Arab Republic’s favor, however, would come in September 2015 – a Russian air campaign, again at the request of the Syrian government, targeting the terrorist groups, allowing Damascus to retake the vast swathes of Syrian territory which had come under their control, such as the key city of Aleppo.
With the Syrian regime-change operation not going as planned, Washington’s Neocons would soon resort to desperate – and reckless – measures.
On the 4th of April 2017, a false flag chemical attack took place in the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun, the blame immediately being placed on Damascus and resulting in the then-US administration of Donald Trump launching cruise missile strikes on a Syrian government airbase three days later. Washington’s action was a highly provocative action, though one that just stopped short of the full-scale military intervention that the regime-change lobby had clamored for. Undeterred, the same tactic would be carried out a year later in the city of Douma, which again would result in the US, Britain and France launching airstrikes against Syrian government targets, also just stopping short of a full-scale intervention.
This is not to discount the grave seriousness of NATO launching a military strike against a Russian ally and the potential consequences that that action could have entailed. Nevertheless, should a similar false flag operation take place in Ukraine, perhaps also involving chemical weapons or a nuclear reactor as Moscow itself has warned of in recent days, even a ‘limited’ strike against Russian military infrastructure would immediately place the world on an irreversible path to the gravest consequence of all – nuclear war.
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
This image posted on the Twitter page of Syria’s al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front on Saturday April 25, 2015, which is consistent with AP reporting, shows Nusra Front fighters standing on their vehicles and waving their group’s flags as they tour the streets of Jisr al-Shughour, Idlib province, Syria. Hard-line Syrian rebel groups entered the strategic town Saturday in northwestern Syria, sending government troops fleeing after intense clashes that have seen them take nearly all of a crucial province. (Al-Nusra Front Twitter page via AP)
Several Syrian-born Turkish citizens and members of the Uighur extremist Turkistan Islamic Party have been linked to the scheme
A report by Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) on the freezing of assets belonging to people linked to ISIS has revealed that for several years the most important supply chain of ISIS’s military arsenal was based in Turkey.
According to the report, millions of dollars in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipment and tons of improvised explosive devices (IED) were sent to ISIS through three construction companies in Mersin, a port city in southern Turkey.
Based on information provided by the National Intelligence Organization and published in March of 2021, the MASAK report shows that Altun İnci Construction Materials Industry and Trade Limited Company operating in Mersin played a vital role in the transfer of the military equipment and parts to ISIS from 2015 to the end of 2016.
The company was founded in 2014 by a Syrian-born Turkish citizen named İbrahim Hag Geneid, partnering with two other Syrian-born businessmen based in Mersin, Ghassan Nawai and Mustafa Naway.
Others involved in the scheme include Abu Naeema al-Turkistani, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, and of Uighur origin, who reportedly ordered materials worth approximately $85,000 to a China-based company in 2015 to be used in the production of weapons.
Al-Turkistani and his wife, Chinese citizen Minawaer Maituersun, reportedly operate a unit responsible for the production of chemical weapons for ISIS.
The connection between ISIS and the Mersin-based company was made following a US airstrike on an ISIS base in late 2017, which killed three ISIS leaders: Abu Muadh Al-Tunusi, Abu Salman, and Sajid Farooq Babar.
Babar, in particular, was closely followed by MASAK due to his direct ties to Mersin and to shipments of military hardware stemming from China and which arrived in the Port of Mersin.
Orders for this hardware were reportedly placed by Mustafa Naway via the e-commerce platform Naway Group, which was founded in Aleppo, Syria, allegedly to import “hardware, small household appliances, stationery, and packaging.”
In 2011, the company opened an office in China, which allegedly remains operational.
Naway Group then opened a branch in Mersin in 2014 for imports to Syria via the port of Mersin. According to the report, orders could only be placed online or by phone. The numbers of these orders match the numbers revealed in the MASAK report.
Meanwhile, Al-Turkistani and his wife Maituersun are reportedly members of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), which Turkey supported as ‘moderate opposition’ in 2015.
The Uighur extremist organization, deemed a terrorist group by Beijing, sided with the Al-Nusra Front armed group during the 2015 conflicts in Idlib.
In 2020, the US government lifted the terrorist designation of the TIP, claiming there was “no credible evidence” that the organization still exists.
I have received a flurry of emails from people concerned that World War III could erupt at any moment. Most of their concern has a single cause: the crazy stuff printed and broadcast by Western press. But I would like to suggest that it is Western press that is the problem, not any incipient military conflict involving the Ukraine. Western press is a joke: there were no weapons of mass destruction; freon does not poke holes in the ozone layer; Trump was not a Russian agent; Syria did not use chemical weapons against its own people; carbon dioxide emissions cause global cooling, not global warming (but not much of it in any case); there are no Russian troops in the Donbass; and… Russia is not going to invade and annex the Ukraine. Furthermore, no number of enticements or provocations can make Russia want to do so. It just plain doesn’t want to trouble itself with that miserable, blighted land.
Suppose you are in a tense negotiation with someone. And suppose that someone puts a plate on the table. On that plate is a bagel. It has green spots and white hair growing out, it is oozing brownish goo, it reeks of ammonia and even the flies are refusing to land on it. And suppose that certain someone then says: if you eat this bagel, it’s war! That’s a tough negotiating stance, isn’t it? After all, that’s really laying down the law, giving an ultimatum, no ifs ands or buts and all that. By adopting this stance, Biden gets to channel just the tiniest bit of John Wayne, with a swagger instead of his usual precarious stumble. For a brief, shining moment he gets to talk to a real world leader and look presidential rather than like a doddering fool who has a useless toxic bimbo for a sidekick.
That’s essentially what Biden did. He told Putin in no uncertain terms: If you invade the Ukraine, then there will be sanctions from Hell. (Begging the question of what sanctions from Heaven would be like, but, never mind, the US is Hell and the Russians seem OK with that.) Biden was careful to point out that the US would not come to the Ukraine’s rescue, because the Ukraine is not a NATO member and so the US is under no obligation to actually take any risks on its behalf, but rest assured that it would huff and it will puff and threaten to blow Putin’s house down should he invade. And should he not invade, then would be right back to “Hey, Vlad, it’s great to see you! It’s your pal Joe, remember me?”.
But would Putin ever be tempted to “eat that bagel”? No, certainly not! The Ukraine is looking most unsavory. Ever since its independence three decades ago it has been progressively dismantled by a rapacious oligarchy, its industry sold for scrap and its infrastructure decaying to truly dangerous levels.
Its major assets are as follows:
• 15 Soviet-era nuclear reactors which are being run flat out but there are rolling blackouts anyway, and which are due to be shut down for good, with no funds available to refurbish them
• Quite a lot of good farmland but a dire shortage of paved roads, locomotives or rolling stock to bring the harvest to the docks
• An aging and destitute population that has shrunk by about a third since independence since most able-bodied people have gone to work abroad, millions of them moving to Russia.
• A gas pipeline network that is technically obsolete, being five times less energy efficient than the newest Nord Stream 2, and that is having its redundant pieces cut up and sold for scrap even as some of it is still running.
Its liabilities include a very high level of external debt that is unlikely to ever be repaid using export revenues and a large crop of neo-Nazi meatheads with blood on their hands. Russia has already got almost everything it wanted from the Ukraine, which is Crimea and the Donbass.
The only thing Russia wants from the US regarding the Ukraine is a written security guarantee that the Ukraine will never be made part of NATO, or have NATO troops or weapons systems on its soil, or be allowed to enter into any other anti-Russian alliances that may crop up should NATO dry up and blow away. Putin asked the US to sign binding legal documents that will block any further encroachment on lands that border Russian territory. This would reduce the risk of an accidental war and allow Russia to focus less military strength on its western border.
However, such security guarantees are not something that Biden can provide without suffering a massive loss of face and destroying any sense of purpose that NATO has been struggling in vain to cultivate ever since the USSR collapsed three decades ago. But sometimes just making a demand is almost as good as having it acceded to. If the US fails to help Russia meet its perfectly reasonable security requirements, then that unties Russia’s hands to do so without US help, leaving the Americans free to simply ignore the situation (something they know how to do quite well) to avoid embarrassing themselves.
And that is a good option to have, since there is no shortage of embarrassments for the Biden administration as it is. Producer price inflation in the US is already running at 25%, and is likely to translate into 12-15% consumer price inflation by next summer, but any attempt to crush inflation by raising interest rates Paul Volcker-style would instantly collapse the entire financial pyramid scheme. As it is, the nation’s finances are in a state that will soon necessitate the Congress to pass a bill declaring the term “balanced budget” to be hate speech. Given the experience in Afghanistan, repatriating all the US troops stationed overseas before the money runs out, to avoid stranding them in faraway lands without any resupply, is going to be a bit of a doozy. The midterm elections next fall are likely to make Biden a lame duck for his remaining two years as the number of people willing to vote for his party is likely to be exceeded by the number of those wanting to give Biden another colonoscopy.
Against this backdrop, it becomes obvious why Biden was visibly eager to talk to Putin and even raised his hands in a teleconference hug, for here is a national leader whose biggest national problem of late is a certain rogue parliamentarian (Rashkin of the Communists) who shot a moose without first obtaining a hunting license. Never mind that Putin referred to his teleconference with Biden as a “protocol event” and spoke the words “Mr. Biden” with an even mixture of exasperation and resignation. It was all in a day’s work for Putin, and so you should probably find something else to worry about because World War III over the Ukraine is off the table. There is no grand finale for America to look forward to; just lots of pain, and then, of course… collapse.
The Russian Federation and China reaffirm their conviction that the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (BWC) is essential as a pillar of the international peace and security, and their determination to safeguard the authority and effectiveness of the Convention. Today, as in 1975, its objective remains relevant: to rule completely out the possibility of biological agents being used as weapons.
The Russian Federation and China reiterate the need that the BWC should be fully complied with and further strengthened, including through its institutionalization and the adoption of a legally binding protocol to the Convention with effective verification mechanism, as well as through regular consultations and cooperation in resolving any issues related to the implementation of the Convention.
The Russian Federation and China emphasize that the BWC functions, including in what concerns the United Nations Security Council, should not be duplicated by other mechanisms. With a view to shaping a BWC mechanism of investigation of the alleged biological weapons incidents, they call on the BWC States Parties to develop operating standards for the mechanism, together with technical guidelines and procedures.
The Russian Federation and China note with concern that over the past two decades the BWC States Parties, despite the wishes of the overwhelming majority, have failed to reach an agreement on resuming the multilateral negotiations on the Protocol to the Convention, suspended in 2001 when the United States unilaterally withdrew from this process despite the fact that the consensus was almost reached. Consequently, and also in the light of rapid advances in the field of science and technology with dual-use capabilities, the risk of biological agents being used as weapons has increased.
In this context they emphasize that the United States’ and its allies’ overseas military biological activities (over 200 US biological laboratories are deployed outside its national territory, which function in opaque and non-transparent manner) cause serious concerns and questions among the international community over its compliance with the BWC. The two sides share the view that such activities pose serious risks for the national security of the Russian Federation and China, and are detrimental to the security of relevant regions.
The Russian Federation and China further note that the United States’ and its allies’ military biological activities on their national territory also cause serious compliance concerns.
Given the fact that the United States and its allies do not provide any meaningful information on those military biological activities that could allay concerns of the international community, the Russian Federation and China urge the United States and its allies to act in an open, transparent and responsible manner, by informing properly on its military biological activities carried out overseas and on their national territory, and supporting the resumption of negotiations on a legally binding protocol to the BWC with effective verification mechanism, so as to ensure their compliance with the BWC.
In this context the Russian Federation and China note the importance of improved confidence-building measures under the Convention, inter alia, by including information on the overseas military biological activities by the BWC States Parties in the reporting form. The two sides believe that such declaration will be conducive to filling in the blank spots and fostering confidence among States Parties.
The Russian Federation and China also call upon the BWC States Parties to continue joint efforts towards strengthening the Convention on a secure, legally binding basis. They welcome relevant initiatives. At the same time, they support ancillary measures to improve the current implementation of the Convention.
The BWC institutional framework would be strengthened with the proposed mobile biomedical teams to render assistance in cases of biological weapons use, investigate such cases and help combat epidemics of various origins. This proposal represents a new approach to the improved BWC implementation at the international level, combining the principles of collective security and cooperation for peaceful purposes.
The Russian Federation and China stress that the rapid development of science and technology in BWC-related areas call for greater attention of the BWC States Parties. There is a need to raise awareness of the risks associated with dual-use research and, simultaneously, promote the full use of the latest advances in biotechnology for peaceful purposes. In this context, the Russian Federation and China support the idea to establish a BWC scientific advisory committee to analyse scientific and technological advances relevant to the Convention and advise its States Parties accordingly.
At the BWC Ninth Review Conference, the Russian Federation and China are prepared to consider any proposals capable of strengthening the Convention and improving its implementation in a non-discriminatory manner. They call upon all BWC States Parties to adopt a constructive approach to ensure that the decisions taken serve strengthening the BWC regime.
Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministryhas put both UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UNSC on notice that it is well past time for the bastion of peace and security to enforce its Charter against member states which breach it, in this case, the Turkish invader and occupation forces. If Guterres and the Security Council continue to refuse to enforce the Charter which prohibits member states from war criminal attacks on other countries, Syria will finally take the matter into its own military hands, which is its legal right, per the Geneva Agreements of 1949 and per the UN Charter.
The polite and overly diplomatic version of this report has been published in SANA, 20 September.
Since the beginning of the heinous NATO Spring dumped on Syria in March 2011, NATO Turkey has led the way in war crimes against the Syrian Arab Republic.
In November 2012, al Qaeda terrorists occupying part of Aleppo, under the commands of NATO Erdogan and the dirty Gulfie gas station — two-thirds of which are US military bases, dismantled Syrian factories and oil machinery parts, and transported them by trucks — in broad daylight — into Turkey.
On 5 December 2012, al Qaeda FSA terrorists in an alleged ‘make shift’ laboratory in Gaziantep, Turkey, announced they had chemical weapons and were prepared to use them against Syrian patriots. They demonstrated that they did — the chemical weapon appeared to be VX — in a fatal experiment with two rabbits. The UNSC refused to investigate the threat.
On 21 December 2012, the al Qaeda FSA terrorists in the same ‘make shift’ lab announced they had developed a quick acting poison that could massacre Syrian patriots via dumping it into the Alsinn Spring water supply to Lattakia. This time one rabbit was used in the fatal demonstration. Again, the UNSC refused to investigate.
Instead of poisoning the spring, the savages used this chemical substance to murder dozens of kidnapped Syrian children, on 4 April 2017, in Khan Sheikhoun.
Prior to Madman Erdogan’s official military invasions of the Syrian Arab Republic — to which it gave Orwellian names of Olive Branch (2018) and Peace Spring (2019), the war criminals had occupied Jarabulus, Syria, and created a Turkish police force.
Syria has previously called on the civilized world to halt Turkey’s cultural aggression against the state.
In September 2019, Erdogan presented his planned annexation of Syria map to the UN General Assembly. He should have had rotten eggs and tomatoes thrown at him; instead, the NATO klansmen and house servants in attendance, bobbed their heads in approval.
Madman Erdogan’s annexation map received tacit approval by the UN NATO klan at General Assembly meeting September 2019.
Imagine the supremacists at UNGA having tolerated a similar map of annexation plots by countries surrounding France:
The reality of Turkey’s water war crimes against Syria was completely ignored by the unindicted war criminals of the UN, at the NATO junta’s anti-Syria monthly meeting, on 24 October 2019. Instead of condemning NATO Turkey’s water war crime against the Syrian people, the urchin honcho disgracefully described Erdogan’s atrocity as perpetrated by “allied non-State armed groups” and inferred that intricate repairs were made by a simple wave of a fairy godmother’s wand.
Mere months later, the same Emergency Relief Coordinator who showed little concern for Erdogan’s water war crimes was nearly frothing at the mouth at the UN anti-Syria klan fest, demanding Tal Abyad have a border crossing opened to ‘help’ the suffering Syrians, though she appeared sedate in the pre-meeting UNSCR meeting of the NATO klan.
Golpista Ursula Mueller, Ass. SG for Humanitarian Affairs & Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, 24 October 2019. She brushed off Erdogan’s water war crimes against Syria
War crimes of bombing power plants & depriving civilians of drinking water have no relevance in the UN NATO klan hysteria to save al Qaeda in Syria. Mueller’s fixation on Tal Abyad for ‘cross-border’ deliveries — supported by the NATO gang — is likely because the Erdogan regime has occupied this area of Syria since October.
Turkey’s war crimes against Syria must obviously include ethnic cleansing of indigenous Syrians from their homeland, resulting in countless civilians being slaughtered in countless fratricidal terrorist attacks, as vicious ‘collateral damage,’ through crime of forced displacement, and simply to massacre them.
Ethnic cleansing is a war crime. Forced displacement is a war crime. Depriving civilians of potable water is a war crime.
The NATO mobsters ruling the UNSC — and the mob gang includes consummate imperialist SG Guterres — have plotted a new Sykes-Picot against Syria. This is why they avert their collective gaze to the Erdogan regime’s constant war crimes against Syria.
Dr. Faisal Mekdad, Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Minister will speak at the upcoming UNGA meeting. He will arrive in NYC with his delegation that includes former Syrian Permanent Representative to the UN, and current Deputy Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Dr. Bashar al Jaafari, Dr. Abdhullah Hallaq, and Ehab Hamed.
Syria has put the UNSC and UNSG on notice that one way or another, Erdogan’s war crimes against the Levantine republic will be halted.
Syria President Dr. Bashar al-Assad: “Every inch of Syria will be liberated”
The non-physician NYC Mayor de Blasio, who resurrected the ‘mistook’ racist Bloomberg Stop & Frisk in having his NYPD he was threatening to defund arrest a lot more black folk for breaching his arbitrary lockdown, who recently lied that an UNGA member said everybody had to get shot per de Blasio’s dictate, and who threatened to invade the international territory of the UN, against all border laws between that establishment and its host country, continues to threaten diplomats and heads of state arriving for the UNGA meeting. He still plans to invade the UN, according to recent news reports (not included in the above hyperlink report on his plan to expand his fiefdom.
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NATO supremacists klansmen running the United Nations held their umpteenth chemical hoax anti-Syria UNSC meeting on 3 February. The UN press corps had immediately chosen not to publish a release on the bad infinity meeting, seemingly too busy in sharing the announcements of various new (temporary) permanent members engaging in ring-kissing meetings with Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres (a small photo gallery of the SG’s colonialist leanings found here).
These monthly reruns are held under the guise of implementing UNSCR 2118, which was passed on 27 September 2013; UNSCR 242 that was passed in 1967 not only does not require monthly meetings on implementation, but also does not require any resolutions to condemn occupying forces from treating wounded terrorists, nor to condemn occupying forces when they bomb from the region, nor to condemn presidents who illegally make presents of the occupied region.
When it comes to terrorists on the occupied Golan, Israel spares no US taxpayer expense in state of art medical care
Before taking a perfunctory glance at the hypocritical arrogance of the P3 Security Council member supremacists, and their customary vomiting up lies and then eating their own, and each other’s emesis, like ravenous dogs, the following article will serve as a refresher course from the first threats to use chemical weapons against Syria, beginning 5 December 2012. It was published 2 March 2017, one month and two days before Jahbat al Nusra terrorists staged its heinous murders of mostly children who were kidnapped, for the supremacists and their media dogs, in Khan Sheikhoun.
Let us take a short trip down memory lane, followed by an amnesia antidote on the chemical terror attack leading up to UNSCR 2118 (2013), possibly the resolution that incited the most excitement among the supremacists running the United Nations — that bastion ofpeace and security that continues to inversely unleash mayhem throughout the world.
Western P3 supremacists France, Britain, and the US have extensive histories as the world leaders in genocide, and also in deployment of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical ones. France called its nuclear bombings of Algerian tribes, Gerboise Bleue; Britain gassed Russia and also “uncivilized tribes” in Iraq; America’s Truman chuckled before telling his people that he had used the country’s two nuclear bombs against Japan, and the US has consistently used white phosphorus as an alleged incendiary device. By naming the chemical weapon white phosphorus ”incendiary device,” it becomes exempt from being considered a chemical weapon. Human beings destroyed by them are merely ”collateral damage,” oh well.
Photos of Algerian survivors of France nuclear bombings seem to be in permanent lockdown.
Let us now do a short decontamination of the NATO supremacists’ convenient amnesia:
The US joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997. The US still has over 3,000 tons of CWs that have somehow not yet been destroyed. There was no UNSC resolution when the US joined; therefore there is no ability to hold monthly meetings for its implementation.
In December 2012, threats of unleashing chemical attacks were uploaded to social media. The threats came from within Turkey. The criminals used rabbits in two fatal experiments; the first appeared to have used VX. In the second, the savage demonstration, the claim was made that a quick-acting poison would be used to pollute the Alsinn water supply to Lattakia. Dr. Jaafari requested a UN investigation, which was ignored (comparing the 21 December 2012 rabbit video with the original Khan Sheikhoun snuff porn video uploaded by the al Qaeda White Helmets on 4 April 2017, this author states with reasonable certainty that this was the same chemical poison.
On 19 March 2013, terrorists unleashed weapons-grade chlorine on Khan al Asal. Two dozen soldiers and civilians were murdered. Ambassador Jaafari’s request one day later, for a UN-OPCW investigation was sabotaged by the British and French ambassadors. OPCW investigators sent to inspect Khan al Asal five months after evidence would have been degraded arrived just before the 21 August Ghouta attack, and were diverted.
In May 2013, American illegal in Aleppo, Matthew VanDyke emailed former ladies’ undergarments salesman cum unemployed couch potato and gamer Eliot Higgins that terrorists had ”small quantities” of chemical weapons, and were prepared to use them against civilians, to blame on the Syrian government.
In early August 2013, moderate FSA terrorists — including criminals from Qatar’s al Jazeera — raided villages in Lattakia, slaughtering men, and kidnapping women and their children. Some of the abductees were identified by their corpses shown after the terrorist chemical attack in al Ghouta, 21 August 2013. Terrorists later complained that they did not know that the missiles from al Saud contained chemical agents, that Prince Bandar should have sent instructions on how to use them.
The world stood on edge as Obama and other western supremacists considered the obliteration of the S. A. R., because Western-supported terrorists had used chemical weapons. Syria acceded to the CWC on 14 October 2013.
The UN-OPCW held several meetings high-fiving each other for the speed at which Syria’s CWs were collected and obliterated (some photos, here.). Nobody mentioned that the UN-OPCW came under missile fire via Madman Erdogan, though, while at the Lattakia port — daintily described as “volatile security conditions” in the 4 June 2014 UN news report on OPCW-UN Special Coordinator Sigrid Kaag’s address to the Security Council.
How did a White Helmet come into possession of a dead fetus & why does this pervert play with the body?
On 20 January 2020, an Arria Formula meetingwas held on Douma, because the NATO supremacists refused to give a Security Council audience to the OPCW’s own Ian Henderson, who led the investigations (Syria News reminds our readers that the SAR immediately requested an investigation by UN-OPCW, and that the investigations were postponed after members came under sniper fire by the same terrorists who had slaughtered dozens of Syrians in Douma, uploaded what should have been recognized as their crimes, to social media, while screaming ‘chemical weapons.’). This was the same SC that refused to hear Jose Bustani in October 2020, on the pretense that he had not participated in the investigations, after which the OPCW censored people with questions, but limiting comments to its Twitter account, to the insider elite tagees.
OPCW has sold itself to NATO warmongers & functions as press liaison for al Qaeda in Syria.
Upon digesting the above, it comes as no surprise that the tripartite aggressor UN representatives — speaking for the world’s leaders in genocide, colonialism, and all other forms of supremacy — were the unified, barking rabid dogs of war, unabashedly unashamed by their hypocrisy and arrogance. The UK — the country whose Tony Blair has not only never been indicted for his war crimes involving his WMD lies about Iraq — lied that “Syria’s declaration…can still not be considered accurate & complete.” France — which never forgave Syria for ejecting French occupiers — again announced its support of al Qaeda in the SAR, functioning as press liaison to terrorists of Ghouta, Khan Sheikhoun, Ltamenah, Douma. The US — which released al Baghdadi from an Iraqi jail and sent him to Jordan with a $10,000,000 slush fund to train DAESH savages — demanded Syria to be held accountable for the terror inflicted on the country by the degenerate criminals it has trained, armed, and deployed into the country.
Utilizing his unique and uncanny skill of throwing those proverbial pearls before swine while maintaining the protocol of true diplomatic language, Dr. Jaafari again meticulously explained reality to the P3 NATO klan supremacists — and to their dancing House Servants — that Syria joined the OPCW 2013, that Syria relinquished all of its chemical weapons stockpile, that Syria has engaged in full cooperation with the OPCW.
Though it was beginning to look as though His Excellency, Minister Dr. Jaafari were to give new meaning to Permanent Representative, this 3 February address to the NATO junta supremacists ruling the United Nations, was his final act of pearl-throwing.
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In order to appreciate his legacy, the reader must understand the complex circumstances in which he worked.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem passed away earlier this week, but his multipolar vision will be remembered forever. The Arab Republic’s top diplomat previously served as his country’s Ambassador to the US from 1990-1999 prior to becoming Assistant Foreign Minister in 2000, Deputy Foreign Minister in 2005, Foreign Minister in 2006, and even Deputy Prime Minister in 2012. He was also Syria’s Minister of Expatriates too. In order to appreciate his legacy, the reader must understand the complex circumstances in which he worked.
The US became the world’s unipolar superpower after the end of the Cold War right when Mr. Muallem became the Syrian Ambassador to that country. He was charged with managing Damascus’ changing relations with the world during that very difficult time. It was during that period that both countries attempted to normalize their formerly hostile Cold War-era relations. Although extremely challenging, Mr. Muallem succeeded as best as he could with his very important task.
Just before becoming Foreign Minister, Syria militarily withdrew from neighboring Lebanon in response to the domestic political changes that took place there during its Cedar Revolution after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus was blamed for that crime but vehemently denied it, and Mr. Muallem provided plenty of evidence in defense of his country to the United Nations. That was his first real challenge in his new post. The year after, in 2007, Israel bombed a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria, which caused a brief crisis.
Mr. Muallem also had to contend with the increasingly aggressive US military presence in neighboring Iraq. Washington had accused Damascus of supporting anti-American militias, and some voices were even urging the Pentagon to go to war against the Arab Republic. Thankfully nothing ever came out of those hawkish cries, but that’s largely the result of Syria’s diplomatic success in standing strong against this bullying. Syrian-American relations then thawed for a short period of time after Secretary of State Kerry visited Damascus in 2010.
It was after the onset of the regional regime change operation popular described as the so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011 that Mr. Muallem became a globally recognized diplomatic figure even though he arguably deserved this distinction earlier for the aforementioned reasons. Syria was victimized by an externally waged hybrid war of terror which included foreign sponsorship of terrorist groups, crippling Western sanctions, and several false accusations that Damascus used chemical weapons against its own people.
The most dramatic of the latter occurred in late 2013 and almost led to the US launching a conventional all-out war against Syria like it had against Libya just two years prior. Mr. Muallem played a leading role in resolving this global crisis, which resulted in Syria surrendering its chemical weapons stockpile to the international community. Two years later, Russia launched a game-changing anti-terrorist military intervention in Damascus’ support to help defeat ISIS, which Mr. Muallem also played an integral role in organizing behind the scenes.
All the while, he simultaneously helped Syria react to several Turkish military interventions without escalating them to the point of a larger war, the same as he did whenever Israel launched literally hundreds of strikes against his country in the proceeding years as well, to say nothing of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition’s attacks too. It took exceptional patience and restraint to avoid overreacting to those provocations like others in his position elsewhere might have done, but he kept his cool and thus helped manage those destabilizing developments.
It should also be mentioned that Syria retained its historic alliance with Iran that preceded Mr. Muallem’s tenure as Foreign Minister by several decades. He masterfully balanced between that Mideast country and Syria’s other Russian ally without playing either off against the other unlike other smaller- and medium-sized states in similarly difficult positions had historically attempted in the past with different partners. Importantly, Mr. Muallem also oversaw the improvement of Syrian-Chinese relations during this time as well.
China, Russia, and Iran are completely different countries but are all united in spirit because of their belief in a multipolar world order, which Syria also supports. Mr. Muallem proved that countries such as his can successfully bring all three of them together to synergize their efforts in pursuit of this vision. The example that he set in this respect, among the many others that were mentioned in this analysis, will ensure that he’s remembered the world over as one of the greatest diplomats of the 21st century.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution His Eminence Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei says Iran’s decisively victorious defense against foreign-backed forces of Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein proved that invading the country is a “very costly” undertaking.
“When a nation shows that it has the diligence and power to defend itself and delivers a crushing response to invaders, invaders would then think twice before perpetrating any incursion against this country and its people, and realize that such an act of aggression would be very costly for them,” the Leader said on Monday.
Imam Khamenei made the remarks via video-link during an even held in the capital Tehran to honor one million veterans of the country’s 1980-88 war against Saddam’s invading forces.
Successful engagement in the war, therefore, awarded the country its current level of security, the Leader noted, enumerating the rewards of the Sacred Defense.
The name signifies Iran’s eight-year-long struggle under the leadership of the late founder of the country’s Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini against the Iraqi aggressor.
The Leader said the defensive struggle also equipped the Iranian people with a sense of self-belief in its ability to fend for itself and put it on a course of technological and scientific development because it had to wade into many new areas to be able to buttress its defensive activities.
The war taught us that “some things that appear to be impossible, are actually possible,” Imam Khamenei stated.
While specifying the actual goal of the warmongers as being destruction of the country’s Islamic Revolution and its Islamic establishment, the Leader noted that Saddam and his Ba’ath party were just being used as “tools by powers, such as the United States, that had suffered serious blows from Iran’s Revolution.”
Others, like the Soviet Union, the Western military alliance of NATO, as well as some other Western and even European countries also contributed to the war because they were “concerned” about the emergence of a new phenomenon in the region that had been founded upon religion, Imam Khamenei said.
Documents that surfaced afterwards showed the US had entered some agreements with Saddam before the war, the Leader remarked, adding that during the war too, Washington would generously provide the former Iraqi dictator with intelligence and arms support.
Imam Khamenei reminded how weapon-laden vessels would dock at regional ports to shore up the invading forces against Iran on a daily basis during the wartime.
Imam Khomeini, however, identified the main forces lying behind the war well, and aptly advised that the Iranian nation to join the Armed Forces in fighting the invaders, the Leader said.
Imam Khomeini’s addresses at the time were marked by “truthfulness, innocence, acuity, and decisiveness,” while his leadership style featured appropriate discernment of the requirements of the battle’s different stages as well as proper moralizing of the Iranian servicemen, Imam Khamenei recalled.
His leadership of the country during the war was also “very prudent,” Imam Khamenei said, noting how his innovative wartime strategies would help the Armed Forces outflank the enemy at various stages.
In the meantime, Imam Khomeini brought about a “massive popular mobilization” during the war, helping recruit all the potentials that were being offered by the full spectrum of the country’s population into the battle, the Leader remembered.
This helped many potentials that lay latent in many people at the time to come to the fore, leading to emergence of many exceptional military, intelligence, and other leaders among the people, Imam Khamenei said, citing the example of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps [IRGC], and many others.
The Leader said despite some attempts at casting doubt over Iran’s victory in the war, it should be known that the country’s triumph is “as bright as the sun” as neither did it lose a handspan of its soil, nor did its leadership take a single step back.
This is while the former monarchical regime’s reign was marked by regular unauthorized intervention of foreigners, including during the World Wars, Imam Khamenei noted.
The Leader said Sacred Defense constitutes part of the country’s national identity because it amounted to supreme manifestation of popular involvement.
The warfare, on the other hand, also betrayed the true and made-up face of the Western world to the Iranian people because it saw the entire Western front pool their forces to deny Iran everything and fortify its enemies to the limit, Imam Khamenei said.
The Leader recalled how the Western countries would outfit the aggressors with chemical weapons, thus going back on all of their pro-human rights claims
Imam Khamenei finally called for the promotion and preservation of the memory of the heroic struggle, especially through creation of rich textual materials that could yield many other instances of content, such as plays and motion pictures.
Prior to the Leader’s remarks, Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri briefed the participants on the country’s ongoing and pending plans to honor the memory of the war.
He unveiled a stamp printed out to honor the war’s 40th anniversary, and announced that the country would be inaugurating as many as eight Sacred Defense museums over the upcoming days.
“We are determined not to allow the distortion of the history of the Sacred Defense that is an invaluable resource for the next generation of the country’s independence, esteem, and pride,” the military chief said.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 