OPCW Issues Fact-Finding Mission Reports on Chemical Weapons Use in Syria
15 replies, posted
THE HAGUE, Netherlands —6 July 2018—The Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) of
the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), issued
an interim report on the FFM’s investigation to date regarding the
allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma, Syria on 7 April 2018.
OPCW designated labs conducted analysis of prioritised samples. The
results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation
products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma
samples taken from alleged casualties. Along with explosive residues,
various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two
sites, for which there is full chain of custody.
On the basis of the information received and analysed, the prevailing
narrative of the interviews, and the results of the laboratory analyses,
the FFM cannot confidently determine whether or not a specific chemical
was used as a weapon in the incidents that took place in the
neighbourhood of Al-Hamadaniyah and in the area of Karm al-Tarrab. The
FFM noted that the persons affected in the reported incidents may, in
some instances, have been exposed to some type of non-persistent,
irritating substance.
OPCW Issues Fact
Non-persistent irritating substance could mean brick dust for all I know.
Didn't we start a bombing campaign over this now unconfirmed chemical attack?
remember when everyone was saying that it wouldn't make sense for assad to gas his own people, right after securing victory in the civil war over their rule?
they were right
I thought there was media documentation and witnesses that said there was chemical attacks?
Media tends to lie to push an agenda (Rebels desperation due to the losses). People can be swayed into lying or making up shit for cash. Two common practices in the SCW. Example; White Helmets.
It's fine for OP article quotes to be selective, but the quote in this OP excludes three very important sentences of the source article, without which the entire meaning of the excerpt changes.
The OPCW actually says that chlorine appears to have been used in Douma, but that work is ongoing to confirm this. They then discuss a separate incident from 2016, where they 'cannot confidently determine' chemical weapons use. The quote in the OP excludes the transition between these points, and makes it appear that the OPCW 'cannot confidently determine' chemical weapons use in Douma.
Here is the full excerpt. Highlighted in bold are the three important sentences which aren't included in the OP.
The Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), issued an interim report on the FFM’s investigation to date regarding the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma, Syria on 7 April 2018.
The FFM’s activities in Douma included on-site visits to collect environmental samples, interviews with witnesses, data collection. In a neighbouring country, the FFM team gathered or received biological and environmental samples, and conducted witness interviews.
OPCW designated labs conducted analysis of prioritised samples. The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties. Along with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain of custody. Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is on-going. The FFM team will continue its work to draw final conclusions.
The Fact-Finding Mission also issued a report on 2 July 2018 addressing allegations of chemical weapons use in Al-Hamadaniya, Syria on 30 October 2016, and Karm al-Tarrab, Syria on 13 November 2016. On the basis of the information received and analysed, the prevailing narrative of the interviews, and the results of the laboratory analyses, the FFM cannot confidently determine whether or not a specific chemical was used as a weapon in the incidents that took place in the neighbourhood of Al-Hamadaniyah and in the area of Karm al-Tarrab. The FFM noted that the persons affected in the reported incidents may, in some instances, have been exposed to some type of non-persistent, irritating substance.
One day it will just come down to fighting Eurasia or Eastasia for the rest of eternity.
In fact, it looks like the attacks where they "cannot confidently determine" chemical weapons use were supposed to have been committed by the rebels.
So the OP quotes give the exact opposite impression to what the OPCW is actually saying. It looks like they say the (allegedly Assad-orchestrated) Douma attack has been disproven. In fact, they say that they found chemicals at the Douma attack site, and that another (allegedly rebel-orchestrated) attack has been disproven.
inaccurately makes it appear that the OPCW 'cannot confidently determine' chemical weapons use in Douma.
That's not what I did, or intended to do at all. I specifically left in text mentioning that the undetermined attacks happened elsewhere.
I also made sure that it mentioned the "chlorinated organic compounds", even though I'm not really sure what those are, but it sounded relevant.
I tried to make sure the important parts were all there from the excerpt the OPCW provided.
I feel like you're trying to paint me as something I'm not, or being up to no good. I don't appreciate the insinuations.
Sorry, I was a bit frustrated to see everyone responding to a misinterpretation of the article. I'm sure it was just an honest oversight/misunderstanding but you can never really tell with all the bullshit that flies round the web
Since the third paragraph I quoted already mentioned where the other (disproven) attacks took place I didn't think it was necessary to add another sentence saying the same information to it, and I didn't want to fall foul of any rules about quoting too much of the article.
I made sure the information was there that no nerve agents, but that chlorinated stuff was found at the Douma attack.
I've been eagerly awaiting this report, it's sad to see they haven't got enough information to make any decision that the chemicals they found had indeed been weaponized and I don't see why they have needed to put the other attacks into the same report.
All round for the length of time we have been waiting for this report, the lack of public facing information is kinda staggering. Is the actual report available online at all? Doubtful but would be an interesting read for sure.
If you scroll down you can find some PDFs under more information. Not sure if that counts as the whole report though.
Feels good about not jumping to circlejerk reactions now. But really, it was coming from a mile.
It seems the whole report isn't out yet, this is the findings so far however this report is essentially everything they know currently, so equally useful.
How many chemists are here on FP? Perhaps we can do some investigation regarding the chemicals found.
I suggest giving his a read through.
https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/S_series/2018/en/s-1645-2018_e_.pdf
The list of samples collected start from page 15 onward. It is stated that no CWC chemicals were found at any site (as we know) however there are indeed chlorides found in many different samples along with traces of TNT, in fact TNT is very common throughout. The chlorides are scattered from sample to sample, and usually occur together.
Now I don't know shit about chlorides but a little catch up on the natural occurrences of organic chlorides shows that they commonly occur in cases of controlled combustion. So we have cases of TNT is this used in chemical weapons delivery systems?
Here is a small report where I got some information in naturally occurring chlorides.
http://homen.vsb.cz/~wih15/Publikace/ChlorEN.pdf
As I said, I have a very limited understanding so any assistance in finding how the listed chlorides are associated with chlorine gas itself for can be found elsewhere (such as say, a bomb hitting an apartment) would be super cool!
Exposure of organic substances to chlorine generally gives nonspecific chlorination, so I think they looked for the listed compounds as markers. Dichloroacetic acid, trichloroacetic acid, and chloral hydrate are relatively nonvolatile so they stick around for longer, making detection more likely. Wood specifically contains phenol (due to its lignin content), which is very readily chlorinated on exposure to chlorine. Bornyl chloride is produced when α-pinene reacts with hydrochloric acid, itself formed when chlorine reacts with moisture or organic substances. Of course these can all form in trace amounts due to incidental exposure to sources of chlorine (e.g. bleach), but I imagine they would have set the threshold for detection much higher.
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