Foreign Policy magazine: How Al Nusra got a hold of Syrian army chemical weapons

[MicroBrew]

We are all aware of Seymour Hirsch claiming Assad didn't carry out the attacks but I never posted a thread on it nor supported Hirsch because I am skeptical of Hirsch's claims , for years now.

This though is an article from Foreign Policy magazine, an establishment rag with respectable creditionals in US media.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/17/how-the-islamic-state-seized-a-chemical-weapons-stockpile/


The article interviews a Jihadist fighter , who mentions that Al Nusra captured chemical weapons when they overran a Syrian army base. The fighter voices suspicions that Al Nusra carried out the chemical weapons attack.

Syrian Army soldiers inside Regiment 111 successfully defended their base during the first rebel attack in early November 2012, killing 18 Nusra fighters in the process. But the cold December wind only fortified the rebels’ resolve. The base was a goldmine: home to guns, artillery, ammunition, and vehicles. And deep inside Regiment 111’s bunkers lay something even more valuable — a cache of chemical weapons.

Within a day, the combined jihadi forces had broken through the lines of the Syrian Army. Shortly after, Regiment 111 was fully under jihadi control. They found large stocks of weapons, ammunition and, to their surprise, chemical agents. They were, according to Abu Ahmad, mainly barrels filled with chlorine, sarin, and mustard gas.

What followed was the distribution of the war spoils. Everybody took some ammunition and weapons. But only the Nusra Front seized the chemical weapons. Abu Ahmad watched as the al Qaeda affiliate called in 10 large cargo trucks, loaded 15 containers with chlorine and sarin gas, and drove them away to an unknown destination. He did not see what happened to the mustard gas.

Three months later, both the Syrian government and rebel groups reported an attack in Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo. The international media said that 26 people had been killed, among them 16 regime soldiers and 10 civilians. Both the Syrian regime and opposition claimed that chemical weapons had been used — and both accused the other of having carried out one of the first chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian war.

Abu Ahmad kept his mouth shut in public, but privately he and some of his Syrian jihadi comrades discussed the matter. Although they did not have any evidence, they wondered whether the material used in the Khan al-Assal attack had been taken from Regiment 111. He knew he couldn’t ask Abu al-Atheer for clarification. By now he had learned one of the golden rules of the secretive jihadi movement: When it’s none of your business, keep quiet.

“Among our people, it is not done to ask,” Abu Ahmad told us.

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I take an agnostic view on who carried out the attacks.

 

[hillelslovak87]

A complete arms embargo on the Middle East. Dont send those fucks, no matter the country, so much as a .22 round.

 

[VivaRevolution]

We are all aware of Seymour Hirsch claiming Assad didn't carry out the attacks but I never posted a thread on it nor supported Hirsch because I am skeptical of Hirsch's claims , for years now.

This though is an article from Foreign Policy magazine, an establishment rag with respectable creditionals in US media.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/17/how-the-islamic-state-seized-a-chemical-weapons-stockpile/


The article interviews a Jihadist fighter , who mentions that Al Nusra captured chemical weapons when they overran a Syrian army base. The fighter voices suspicions that Al Nusra carried out the chemical weapons attack.







-
I take an agnostic view on who carried out the attacks.

I know enough, to know that I know nothing. Which means even if I find herch, or anyone else to be credible, or to be making a compelling argument, that it would still be foolish to be anything other than agnostic.