Guest Post by Dr Piers Robinson
On 7 April 2018 reports emerged from a suburb of Damascus, Douma, claiming that a chemical weapons attack had occurred. Images of dead women and children inside an apartment building were circulated over the internet along with hospital scenes showing alleged victims being hosed down with water.
Within days, images of two yellow cylinders purported to have been dropped by Syrian Arab Air Force helicopters also appeared. Images of the deceased, which showed over 40 civilians appearing to have dropped dead on the spot, gathering in piles and with some showing profuse foaming at the mouth, suggested to many experts and officials that a fast acting nerve agent had been used.
Within days a Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) was deployed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in order to investigate the alleged incident, although not before the US, Britain and France had carried out military strikes against Syria having already concluded the attack had occurred as alleged.
Continue reading “Five Years On: The OPCW-Douma Deception Continue”