HRW Report: Most Casualties on 8/21 Were Killed by a Few Improvised Rockets, Not Military Munitions

[leveymg]

Last edited Sat Sep 14, 2013, 12:12 PM - Edit history (13)

On September 10, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published its 22-page report on the chemical attacks in suburban Damascus. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/09/10/attacks-ghouta-0 That paper follows similar reports by the U.S. State Department, the Government of France, but offers a wealth of information and details missing in the governmental assessments.

HRW: Vast Majority Killed with Non-Military Ordinance

Details of the HRW report have caused this writer to reassess some earlier conclusions, but it has also reinforced some other doubts raised about the accuracy and completeness of the U.S. and French reports. The HRW study does not back up the U.S. report that the deadliest attacks on eastern Damascus were launched from a "regime controlled" area, the number of neighborhoods attacked, or the number of rockets launched. Most fundamentally, it casts doubt on the conclusions drawn that the deadliest of these attacks had to be carried out by regime forces using military weapons.

One issue which HRW has helped to correct previous confusion regards the types of ordinance used. It had been previously thought that large numbers of rockets, each carrying a relatively small amount of Sarin were required to produce fatalities that number upwards of hundreds killed to 1426 claimed by the Kerry Report. Earlier assessments that many dozens of rockets had to used was predicated upon information that each rocket held only 1-2 liters of Sarin each. This report now makes it clear that there were in fact two types of chemical rockets used on separate neighborhoods, and that by far the deadlier attacks were carried out with a small number -- as few as eight -- crude but deadly improvised rockets of the type that have been previously used by militias inside Syria and by insurgent groups in several Mideast countries.

In contrast, the neighborhood in western Damascus targeted with standard Syrian Army munitions suffered relatively light casualties, and HRW finds there is no evidence of the type of military ordinance used there ever having been employed before in the civil war. The neighborhood closest to the military airbase and headquarters of the 4th Armored Brigade was attacked by seven or eight 140mm artillery rockets, a standard type of Soviet-era munition. Each of these rounds is relatively accurate but capable of carrying only 2 liters of Sarin over a range of up to about six miles. According to HRW, fewer than one-in-six of the fatalities occurred in that area where these military munitions were used.

However, according to the HRW Report, at least 8 larger improvised gas rockets (333mm in diameter) impacted in the eastern part of the city. Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munitions (IRAMs), these bigger, deadlier, but clumsier devices are not standard military ordinance. During the same night, these improvised rockets were fired into the eastern Damascus suburbs in the area of Zamalka, and this type is estimated by HRW’s experts to have a capacity to carry upwards of 50 liters of Sarin in each warhead. While it carries a far larger amount of poisonous agent, and are proportionately more deadly over a larger area, these improvised devices are described as having poor flight characteristics with a more limited range and poor accuracy, except very close to the target:

The rocket is of a non-aerodynamic design . . . indicat(ing) that the rocket would be relatively short ranged and not capable of accurate targeting.

Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munition (IRAM)of Same Type Used in 8/21 Damascus Attack:
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HRW Report Silent About State Dept. Allegation that All Attacks Launched from Regime-Controlled Territory


HRW Map of Targeted Damascus Neighborhoods (highlighted in Red)


One interesting aspect of the HRW report is that while the authors cite witnesses as stating that the smaller, more accurate rockets were observed to have come from the direction of Syrian military bases, the report is silent as to where the larger, deadlier improvised rockets were launched. Nonetheless, the HRW paper specifies that the improvised devices killed far more people:

Human Rights Watch has collected the names of 80 individuals believed to have been killed in the August 21 strikes in Moadamiya in Western Ghouta. Two sources told Human Rights Watch that 103 people were killed in the Moadamiya attack.28 Because the attack on Eastern Ghouta involved a much larger affected area, and several small clinics where victims were brought, a total death toll is more difficult to establish. A member of the Zamalka media center, stated during an interview with Human Rights Watch on September 4, and in a separate interview with local journalists on the same day, that the local council in Zamalka had registered the full names of 734 persons who were killed during the attack in Zamalka neighborhood.

HRW states that witnesses counted some seven or eight of the smaller but more accurate 140mm rockets launched into the southwestern neighborhoods of Moadamiya near the military airfield at Mezzeh. The report states:

Two witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the August 21 rocket attack on their area came from the direction of the Mezzeh Military Airport and the nearby Syrian 4th Armored Division base, which are located respectively four kilometers and five to seven kilometers from the site of the attack, and thus within the range of possible launching sites.

The other Sarin gas strikes were in a distant neighborhood identified as Zamalka, 16 kilometers to the East on the other side of Damascus. It becomes clear that these improvised rockets could not have been launched from the same site, as they simply do not have the range to reach any of the eastern targets, particularly the easternmost neighborhood of Duma that is 20 kilometers away from the Mezzah airfield and army base:

Human Rights Watch confirm(s) at least four strike sites in Zamalka where at least eight 330mm rockets struck on August 21. This is unlikely to be a complete account of the number of rockets used in the attack . . . The 330mm surface-to-surface rocket that appears to be associated with the August 21 attack on Eastern Ghouta is of a type not listed in standard, specialized, international or declassified reference materials. It is a rocket type that has not been documented before the outbreak of the current Syrian conflict . . .

< . . .>

Our analysis does not exclude the possibility that additional weapons delivery systems were used in the Eastern and Western Ghouta attacks that have not yet been identified and analyzed. However, the two analyzed by Human Rights Watch are the only known rocket systems identified as associated with the attacks, according to local activists who have closely inspected both the affected areas.

I therefore must revise my earlier assessment, and now acknowledge that in the Eastern suburbs it is entirely possible for just a handful of these larger rockets to have killed several hundreds of people by area saturation with large amounts of poison gas. Please, see, http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023576617

Something else that HRW tells us is that the large improvised rockets had to have been launched from relatively close range only a few kilometers away. Here, my earlier thinking appears to be confirmed. The State Dept. report alleges that all the rockets fired that night were from “regime-controlled territory”. However, when we look at the State Department map, below, and compare it with the HRW map, a couple things become clear. First, the area in the pink (regime-controlled) is at least six or seven miles from Duma. Therefore, either the map or the State Department’s statement that it located the launching site for the larger rockets in western Damascus appears to be incorrect or improvised gas rockets were launched from outside government-controlled area. Second, HRW was unable to confirm most of alleged target areas, of which the State Department shows 12.

State Department Map:



That brings us to the final question raised here. Why did the Syrian Army use crude, improvised munitions when as the French Report points out, it has large numbers of other types of modern chemical munitions and rockets, some of them with ranges that reach out to 75 kilometers and further with greater accuracy.

Indeed, this just reinforces persistent doubts that Syrian Army units under the control of the regime launched these improvised munitions that killed most of the victims on 8/21. As Brown Moses Blog pointed out in June, these things were introduced into Syria last year and have previously been used there with conventional high explosive warheads by Hezbollah militias. Below, we see an IRAM that was previously identified by that source as having been used by a militia, not the Syrian military. One can see that it is closely related to the type, shown above, used in the Damascus gas attack. http://brown-moses.blogspot.com/2013/06/diy-weapons-in-syria-hezbollah-deploys.html

IRAM Used Inside Syria by Militia Prior to 8/21


It appears, contrary to the assertions made, that a lot of people in the Mideast besides the Syrian military have cobbled together their own IRAMs and could have both the means and motive to have used them in Eastern Damascus that terrible night.

Al-Qaeda IRAM:
Similar IRAMs have been manufactured and used by a variety of groups, including al-Qaeda, across the region as we see here:

[ProSense]

1. Syria: Government Likely Culprit in Chemical Attack

Syria: Government Likely Culprit in Chemical Attack

New Evidence based on Rocket Analysis, Witness Accounts

September 10, 2013

(New York) – Available evidence strongly suggests that Syrian government forces were responsible for chemical weapons attacks on two Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013. These attacks, which killed hundreds of civilians including many children, appeared to use a weapons-grade nerve agent, most likely Sarin.

The 22-page report, “Attacks on Ghouta: Analysis of Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria,”documents two alleged chemical weapons attacks on the opposition-controlled suburbs of Eastern and Western Ghouta, located 16 kilometers apart, in the early hours of August 21. Human Rights Watch analyzed witness accounts of the rocket attacks, information on the likely source of the attacks, the physical remnants of the weapon systems used, and the medical symptoms exhibited by the victims as documented by medical staff.

“Rocket debris and symptoms of the victims from the August 21 attacks on Ghouta provide telltale evidence about the weapon systems used,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “This evidencestrongly suggests that Syrian governmenttroops launched rockets carrying chemical warheads into the Damascus suburbs that terrible morning.”

The evidence concerning the type of rockets and launchers used in these attacks strongly suggests that these are weapon systems known and documented to be only in the possession of, and used by, Syrian government armed forces, Human Rights Watch said.

- more -

https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/10/syria-government-likely-culprit-chemical-attack

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023634928

Assad admitted to bombing area after chemical attack took place.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023637203

The estimated casualties from Assad's chemical attack range from 500 to about 1,500. There will likely be more accurate numbers at some point.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, generally regarded as one of the most reliable sources of information on casualty figures in Syria, says it has confirmed 502 deaths, including 80 children and 137 women. Rami Abdul-Rahman, a Syrian expatriate who runs the organization from his home in Britain, said he was shocked by the White House's count.

<...>

"The U.S. took this high number from one part of the Syrian opposition that is supported by the U.S. government," Abdul-Rahman said. "We don't trust them."

<...>

Syria's political and military opposition is severely fragmented. The U.S. figure more closely matches reports by pro-opposition organizations such as the Local Coordination Committees and the United Revolutionary Medical Office in eastern Ghouta, a Damascus suburb hit by the alleged chemical attack.

The latter group said it had documented at least 1,302 deaths, about two-thirds of which were women and children. That figure was cited by the U.S.-based Syrian Support Group, which has a federal license to funnel aid to Syrian rebels.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-casualties-20130904,0,681916.story

The opposition is fragmented, and there is no doubt a power struggle.

1. The Unified Medical Revolutionary Office of Eastern Ghouta reported that 1,302 were killed in the attack, about 70 percent of whom were women and children, al-Baik said.

At least 9,838 others were wounded, he said.

2. In a Saturday report, the Foundation for Defence of Syrian Human Rights claimed the regime used chemical weapons 28 times between July 13th and August 21st. There were 23 incidents in and around Damascus, most recently the attack in Eastern and Western Ghouta, which killed a total of 1,845 and injured 9,924, it said.

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2013/08/28/feature-04 (h/t KittyWampus)

Clearly, Kerry didn't pull the numbers out of thin air. Other groups have reported similar casualties. Even if one goes with the number reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group aligned with the rebels that accuses the government of the attacks, it is still a deadly chemical attack launched by Assad.

Background on SOHR.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

The UK based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) is an information office opposed to the Government of Syria. There was conflict between Rami Abdulrahman,[1] a Syrian expatriate, and Mousab Azzawi about who rightfully ran the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.[2][3] Abdulrahman's UK based SOHR has been cited by virtually every western news outlet since the beginning of the uprising.[1][3]

The UK based SOHR is run out of a two-bedroom terraced home in Coventry, UK, by one person, Rami Abdulrahman (or Rami Abdul Rahman, or Rami Abdelrahman),[4] a Syrian Sunni Muslim who also runs a clothes shop. After three spells in prison in Syria, Abdulrahman came to Britain in 2000 fearing a longer, fourth jail term.[1]

In a December 2011 interview with Reuters, Abdulrahman said the observatory has a network of 200 people and that six of his sources had been killed. Abdulrahman reports on events in the Syrian uprising, including the deaths of civilians, rebels and army defectors (which he calls "martyrs&quot [5] and government soldiers.[6] SOHR's methodology for counting civilian victims has been questioned,[7] as the organisation includes opposition combatants among the number of civilian casualties, as long as these are not former members of the military.[8]

<...>

SOHR has been accused of selective reporting, covering only violent acts of the government forces against the opposition for the first two years of its existence. Although critics concede that its newsgathering has become less partial, the perception is it "continues to defend Islamic extremists to avoid losing support among rebel forces".[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Observatory_for_Human_Rights

The LCCS:

Local Coordination Committees of Syria

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria (Arabic: لجان التنسيق المحلية في سوريا‎: LCCSyria[3] or LCCs[4]) consist of a network of local groups that organise and report on protests as part of the Syrian uprising.[2][5] In June 2011, the network was described by The New York Times as beginning to "emerge as a pivotal force" in Syria.[1] As of August 2011, the network supported civil disobedience and opposed local armed resistance and international military intervention as methods of opposing the Syrian government.[6]

<...>

LCCSyria is financed by donations from individual supporters.[7] This is further facilitated by the "Adopt a Revolution" initiative.[8] Furthermore the Office for Syrian Opposition Support, which itself was founded by the United States Department of State and Foreign and Commonwealth Office[9] and is funded by the Friends of Syria Group, provides "material support" and "training assistance" to the LCCs.[10]

Human rights journalism

Rami Nakhle, who helps LCCSyria from exile in Lebanon, said that media activities documenting protests were the network's first main activity. The Syrian human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouneh, winner of the 2011 Sakharov Prize[11] and the 2011 Anna Politkovskaya Award,[2] has documented human rights in Syria for the network.[2] The network's text and photographic reports of injuries and deaths of protestors have been used by CNN,[5] Al Jazeera English,[12] The Guardian[13] and The Washington Post.[14][15] The network publishes reports on its own website and on Facebook.[4]

On 1 February 2012, LCCSyria criticised the international and Arab community as having been "unable to take any decision that contributes to stopping the cycle of violence in Syria". It estimated the number of deaths in the civil war is more than 100,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Coordination_Committees_of_Syria

[KoKo]

2. Recommend! Interesting.

There's been some reports from around the international media that there was more to this attack than the gassing.

So, thanks for putting this report together from HRW here.

We shall see...as hopefully more comes out now that the War Push for now...(at least) has subsided a bit.

[leveymg]

4. There seem to be more than two sides to this coin.

My gut tells me that the larger, dumber, deadlier rockets are still under the control of regime militias, but there's a question as to how loyal they all are. As for the 140s, it's pretty clear from the calls from the Minister of Defense that night that some chemical unit commander launched without proper authorization. Because the USG refuses to release the intercepts, we can only speculate about the exact details of that conversation, but I would guess that officer is no longer in command.

There is the unresolved possibility also that this was part of some sort of coup or elaborate power struggle within the regime. From Assad's speed to embrace the out handed to him by the Russians and Americans -- sign the chemical treaty and hand over the devices, or else -- Bashar no doubt sees these things as a liability as far as his own survival is concerned.

[Junkdrawer]

7. The details of those calls probably have the keys to this incident.....

Think about it...

If you were trying to do a covert OP to implicate Assad, and the opposition is former officers who have turned, what better way than to have a rebel officer approach a colleague he knows is ready to turn and have them launch the CWs. Assad would be on the defensive because he would have to explain why the weapons were in the field to begin with. And the chatter would be generals trying to stop the ongoing attack.

[leveymg]

10. I am sure that eventually we will hear those intercepts. I am not sure why they haven't been

released if they don't substantially undermine the case for war.

I'd also be curious to find out whether it was really the regular Army in control of both types, and if not, who launched first. It could have been a cascade of launches started by some militia unit with big dumb bombs.

If we have overhead for three days picking these units setting this up, as was initially claimed, we must know who did what when and by whose orders. But, then again, I doubt it would take more than three hours to set up such an attack using only 16 rockets. That question is worth looking into.

[Junkdrawer]

11. Grayson has been raising a national stink for over a week now....

and he still can't get access. Says no one in the House can get access.

[leveymg]

12. Just the ones who have been "read in" will get any access to raw, and even they won't be shown

everything. The system isn't really set up for civilian control of the military in this country -- err, I mean, Congressional control over going to war.

I don't have much confidence in the Gang of Eight after Iraq, anyway. A lot of the same tired old faces.

[Junkdrawer]

13. It makes no sense Assad would order attacks the DAY the UN arrives. BUT...

if you read the Wiki summary of the March/April 2011 protests, clamp downs and killings on BOTH sides a pattern emerges:

Assad is provoked, police and troops are killed and Assad answers with disproportional force. Most governments would do the same.

So if the rebels had kitchen sarin and were using it, bet that Assad would deploy his. And as I said, turn one key officer and.....

[Thinkingabout]

3. It has been reported th UN will release its report on Monday, for many it will provide the

Information many have been asking for and for others prone to the CT it will be information to be twisted and turned.

[leveymg]

5. Everyone knows that it will show that sarin was used, but it won't answer the essential questions:

by whom and by whose orders.

[morningfog]

6. And how much?

[leveymg]

9. It's interesting that the State Dept and HRW differ so greatly on the number of targets, as well as

the number killed. The latter discrepency is to be expected, but HRW is pretty clear that it could not find the other areas targeted that the State Dept map indicates were 'impacted' by sarin gas that night. It looks like there has been some major exaggeration for effect, but the UN report will tell us more about casualties and locations of attacks.

[Thinkingabout]

8. I think it will, let the report be given before judging. If Assad is now willing to sign the

Chemical weapons treaty and is making arrangements to turn over the chemical weapons he has denied having had during the tragic gassing of Syrian citizens then he just might possess CW's, this should not be hard to accept he has CW's.