'War crime': U.N. finds sarin used in Syria chemical weapons attack

[leveymg]

57. Note a couple things: the report makes no mention of sarin quality - that's a claim made by the UK

Last edited Mon Sep 16, 2013, 10:27 PM - Edit history (1)

Ambassador at the presser. Also, until this gets clarified, I wouldn't assume the same type of sarin was used. The results show about a 20% lower positive results for exposure among the population that was targeted by the improvised devices in the east, even though 25 times as much Sarin was released there using about the same number of rockets in each attack.

If you go back and read Brown Moses for June (I linked it in the last post a few days ago) you will see that thee 333mm device is based upon an IRAM that that source claims was introduced into Syria late last year by Hezbollah, and there was reference to that group using a fuel-air version to knock down buildings in rebel-held neighborhoods. It's referenced as a "vacuum bomb" elsewhere. The devices do look like they were short-run workshop built with standardized paint and semi-standardized markings of various types, some hand lettering and some stenciling. But, the rockets are pretty crude, if effective when they work. The dispersal method is nothing but an impact fuse or a timer taken from a mortar round attached to a stick of plastic explosive. Not sophisticated at all.

These things can't fly more than a few miles. The 105 degree azimuth makes the launch site almost due west (slightly northwest of Ein Tarma), anyway. That's Jobar District, a contested area (according to the Inst, for Study of War, anyway) where a lot of interesting things (involving opposition chemical caches and Hezbollah militia being exposed) have been happening for several months. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2013/Aug-26/228701-hezbollah-fighters-exposed-to-chemical-agents-in-syria-source.ashx#axzz2f3fgTuWD Look on a map. If you disagree with any of that, please explain, UN Report, p. 23:

Impact Site Number 4
The munition related to this impact site by observed and measured characteristics indicatively matches a 330 mm caliber, artillery rocket. The projectile, in the last stage of its trajectory, hit the surface in an area of earthy, relatively soft, ground where the shaft/engine of the projectile remained dug in, undisturbed until investigated.
The said shaft/engine, presenting no form of lateral bending, pointed precisely in a bearing of 285 degrees that, again , represent a reverse azimuth to the trajectory followed by the rocket during its flight. It can be, thus, concluded that the original azimuth of the rocket trajectory had an azimuth of 105 degrees,in an East/South east trajectory.