“We don’t know who used them”

The international media avoids talking about possible use of chemical weapons by armed terrorist groups in Syria , just as it ignored Al-Qaeda leader’s call for jihad marking the start of deadly suicide attacks in Syria, stated Ammar Waqaf of the Syrian Social Club to Russian TV, pointing out that the much of media fuss about around the stalled investigation over chemical weapons might be serving as a cover-up for the use of such weapons by armed terrorists.

Waqaf pointed out that the Syrian ambassador to the UN Dr. Bashar Ja’afari did point out that probably such a fuss and western allegations were a prelude for pushing the UN for sending an inspector team like… into Iraq in 2003, which would have been a prelude for interpreting, and misinterpreting their findings and going in there. But what we see on the ground is that actually there’s increased evidence that the terrorists are using chemical weapons. Not only few weeks ago in Khan al-Assal chemical weapons were used, and, evidently, the Syrian government did ask the UN to come and investigate. But actually a few days ago in the neighborhood of Barzeh – outskirts of Damascus – there was an attack on the army posts with chemical weapons and about 13 people were killed. And nobody is talking about this.

On his part, the renowned Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent on April 28th an interesting article about the western and Israeli allegations regarding chemical weapons use. Fisk cited the Israeli contradictory claims and statements to this effect:  “have used/have probably used/might have used/could use chemical weapons”.

It all comes back to that most infantile cliché of all: that the US and Israel fear Assad’s chemical weapons “falling into the wrong hands”. They are frightened, in other words, that these chemicals might end up in the armoury of the very same “rebels”, especially the Islamists, that Washington, London, Paris, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are supporting. And if these are the “wrong hands”, then presumably the weapons in Assad’s armoury are in the “right hands” Fisk wrote.

Actually, as Dr. Bashar al-Jafaari, the Syrian Ambassador to the UN has repeatedly pointed out, the UN Secretariat is procrastinating to send an investigation  mission to Khan al-Asal ,  casting more doubts about the politicization of the issue as  sought by some Western, regional  and Arab countries ,  similar to what happened in Iraq before the invasion. Syria, however, isn’t Iraq and the need is dire for definite answers for Obama’s recent perplexities : “we don’t know when they were used, how they were used. We don’t know who used them. We don’t have a chain of custody that establishes” exactly what happened. In Khan al-Assal, Saraqib, Barza, the armed terrorists did use chemical poisons against the Syrian soldiers and civilians among whom  some were martyred and others taken to Turkey as to accuse the state of using chemicals!

Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim