“This is more than one organization representing that they have more than one sample from more than one attack,” the source tells Danger Room. “But we can’t confirm anything because no is really sure what’s going on in country.”
What’s clear is that the samples are authentic, and that the weapons were almost certainly employed by the Assad regime, which began months ago mixing up quantities of sarin’s chemical precursors for an potential attack, as Danger Room first reported.
“It would be very, very difficult for the opposition to fake this. Not only would they need the wherewithal to steal it or brew it up themselves. Then they’d need volunteers who would notionally agree to a possibly lethal exposure,” the source adds.
This assessment sounds definitive, as if the US is certain sarin was used. It is also a lot stronger rhetoric than the official statement originally leaked through Secretary of Defense Hagel.
General Salim Idriss, head of the insurgent Supreme Military Council, addresses Syrian expatriates, 24 February 2013
One of the themes in our daily coverage of Syria is the state of the insurgency, from the ideology and organisation of different factions to the supply of weapons to the efforts to declare an umbrella leadership such as the "Free Syrian Army".
Last week, Aron Lund brought these issues into stark relief with a post on Syria Comment questioning if one could even speak of an FSA. Days later, Koert Debeuf replied on the website with a vigorous defence of a leading group directing the
EA's James Miller comments:
Lund made some important points in his initial article. To criticise it by saying that it was an oversimplification would be unfair. After all, nothing is more complex than the "Free Syrian Army", and Lund has produced an impressively concise summary.
Debeuf, however, makes a more important point. The "Free Syrian Army" has never had any meaning more than it does todayinsurgency.
The opening and closing sections of the Lund and Debeuf articles....
Saturday, June 1, 2013 at 6:43 |