Rebels Admit
Responsibility for
Chemical Weapons
Attack
Militants tell AP reporter they
mishandled Saudi-supplied
chemical weapons, causing
accident
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
August 30, 2013
Syrian rebels in the Damascus
suburb of Ghouta have admitted
to Associated Press correspondent
Dale Gavlak that they were
responsible for last week’s
chemical weapons incident
which western powers have
blamed on Bashar Al-Assad’s
forces, revealing that the
casualties were the result of an
accident caused by rebels
mishandling chemical weapons
provided to them by Saudi
Arabia.
“From numerous interviews with
doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel
fighters and their
families….many believe that
certain rebels received chemical
weapons via the Saudi
intelligence chief, Prince Bandar
bin Sultan, and were responsible
for carrying out the (deadly) gas
attack,” writes Gavlak. (back up
version here ).
Rebels told Gavlak that they were
not properly trained on how to
handle the chemical weapons or
even told what they were. It
appears as though the weapons
were initially supposed to be
given to the Al-Qaeda offshoot
Jabhat al-Nusra.
“We were very curious about
these arms. And unfortunately,
some of the fighters handled the
weapons improperly and set off
the explosions,” one militant
named ‘J’ told Gavlak.
His claims are echoed by another
female fighter named ‘K’, who
told Gavlak, “They didn’t tell us
what these arms were or how to
use them. We didn’t know they
were chemical weapons. We
never imagined they were
chemical weapons.”
Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of
an opposition rebel, also told
Gavlak, “My son came to me two
weeks ago asking what I thought
the weapons were that he had
been asked to carry,” describing
them as having a “tube-like
structure” while others were like
a “huge gas bottle.” The father
names the Saudi militant who
provided the weapons as Abu
Ayesha.
According to Abdel-Moneim, the
weapons exploded inside a
tunnel, killing 12 rebels.
“More than a dozen rebels
interviewed reported that their
salaries came from the Saudi
government,” writes Gavlak.
If accurate, this story could
completely derail the United
States’ rush to attack Syria
which has been founded on the
“undeniable” justification that
Assad was behind the chemical
weapons attack. Dale Gavlak’s
credibility is very impressive. He
has been a Middle East
correspondent for the Associated
Press for two decades and has
also worked for National Public
Radio (NPR) and written articles
for BBC News.
The website on which the
story originally appeared - Mint
Press (which is currently down
as a result of huge traffic it is
attracting to the article) is a
legitimate media organization
based in Minnesota.
The Minnesota Post did a
profile on them last year.
Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in
providing rebels, whom they
have vehemently backed at every
turn, with chemical weapons, is
no surprise given the revelations
earlier this week that the Saudis
threatened Russia with terror
attacks at next year’s Winter
Olympics in Sochi unless they
abandoned support for the
Syrian President.
“I can give you a guarantee to
protect the Winter Olympics next
year. The Chechen groups that
threaten the security of the
games are controlled by us,”
Prince Bandar allegedly told
Vladimir Putin, the Telegraph
reports.
The Obama administration is set
to present its intelligence
findings today in an effort prove
that Assad’s forces were behind
last week’s attack, despite
American officials admitting to
the New York Times that there is
no “smoking gun” that directly
links President Assad to the
attack.
US intelligence officials also told
the Associated Press that the
intelligence proving Assad’s
culpability is “no slam dunk.”
As we reported earlier this
week, intercepted intelligence
revealed that the Syrian Defense
Ministry was making “panicked”
phone calls to Syria’s chemical
weapons department demanding
answers in the hours after the
attack, suggesting that it was not
ordered by Assad’s forces.
UPDATE: Associated Press
contacted us to confirm that
Dave Gavlak is an AP
correspondent, but that her story
was not published under the
banner of the Associated Press.
We didn’t claim this was the
case, we merely pointed to
Gavlak’s credentials to stress that
she is a credible source, being
not only an AP correspondent,
but also having written for PBS,
BBC and Salon.com.
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