Rebel possession of chemical weapons

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Al-Nusra fighter with 'sarin' grenades

Rebels admit to using chemical weapons?

There are many claims of the rebels admitting to using or possessing chemical weapons. Here is one such video: -- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:23, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

So this is a second story, not a new find: Video: Syrian Rebel Admits Using Chemical Weapons --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:25, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Arrests in Turkey

TIME magazine journalist Steven Sotloff tweets Today's Zaman story, ends up killed by ISIS
Da'ish fired chlorine-filled rockets at northern Tikrit, Iraq. Here's one that didn't explode. (source)
  • Report: Police foil al-Nusra bomb attack planned for Adana - Today’s Zaman, May 20, 2013
  • Turkey finds sarin gas in homes of suspected Syrian Islamists – reports – RT, May 30, 2013, updated September 14, 2013
  • Syrian rebel groups sought to buy materials for chemical weapons, prosecutors say – Doğan News Agency, Hurriyet Daily News, September 12, 2013
    A public prosecutor completed his indictment as part of the probe into the chemicals seized in the southern province of Hatay on Sept. 12, claiming that jihadist Syrian rebel groups were seeking to buy materials that could be used to produce highly toxic sarin gas.
    The indictment, which included transcripts of several phone conversations between the suspects involved, said that a 35-year-old Syrian citizen, identified as Hytham Qassap, established a connection with a network in Turkey in order to procure chemical materials for the al-Nusra Front and jihadist Ahrar al-Sham Brigades.
    The indictment rejected the legitimacy of the suspects’ claim that they were unaware the chemicals they tried to obtain could be used to produce sarin gas.
    The indictment also contained Qassap’s testimony where he confessed his links with the Ahrar al-Sham Brigades and moved to the city of Antakya following the instructions of its leader, Abu Walid. “After I arrived in Antakya, other rebel groups had come into contact with me. While some had asked me for medicine and other humanitarian aid supplies, others wanted to obtain military equipment,” he told prosecutors.
    A total of 11 people were arrested during the investigation launched late May after police received a tip suggesting that some Syrian rebel groups were looking to procure materials that could be used to produce chemical weapons.
  • U.S. MILITARY CONFIRMS REBELS HAD SARIN – F. MICHAEL MALOOF, WDN, September 12, 2013
    Classified document shows deadly weapon found in home of arrested Islamists
    In a classified document just obtained by WND, the U.S. military confirms that sarin was confiscated earlier this year from members of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, the most influential of the rebel Islamists fighting in Syria.
    The document says sarin from al-Qaida in Iraq made its way into Turkey and that while some was seized, more could have been used in an attack last March on civilians and Syrian military soldiers in Aleppo.
    It revealed that AQI had produced a “bench-scale” form of sarin in Iraq and then transferred it to Turkey.
    A U.S. military source said there were a number of interrogations as well as some clan reports as part of what the document said were “50 general indicators to monitor progress and characterize the state of the ANF/AQI-associated Sarin chemical warfare agent developing effort.”
  • Iran regrets US ignorance of warning on chemical arms in Syria, Press TV, September 12, 2013
    Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has expressed regret that the United States ignored the Islamic Republic’s warning on the access by militant groups fighting in Syria to dangerous chemical weapons.
    “We have indications and we have shared those indications in the past with the United States and with others … [that] extremely dangerous chemical weapons were being smuggled into Syria to armed groups that are fighting the Syrian people and the Syrian government,” Zarif told Press TV in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
    The Iranian minister noted that “unfortunately” the US did not give any response to Iran’s warning.
  • Turkish prosecutor indicts six jihadists for alleged attempts to acquire chemicals with intent to produce sarinThe Kurdish Cause, September 12, 2013
  • Turkey intercepts chemical shipment from Syriaal Akhbar, November 4, 2013
    Turkish authorities have seized a large quantity of chemicals from a convoy trying to illegally enter the country from Syria, which "could be transformed into weapons," the army said Sunday.
  • Turkey indicts 11 linked with Syria militants caught with sarin gas – PressTV, September 14, 2013
  • Syria Rebels Ordered 10 Tons of Sarin Nerve Agent in Turkey – FNA, September 14, 2013

Suspects released & cover-up

OPCW

I am reading this summary of the New York Times article by Finian Cunningham:

What Cunningham is saying, and what I also inferred from between the lines, is that the Syrian government has admitted to the OPCW that is has lost control of one or more of its chemical weapons storage sites. The implication is that ISIL / al-Nusra Front / Liwa al-Islam now has access to unlimited supplies of sarin, far more than would be needed for the Ghouta CW attack. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 22:55, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, it has turned out quickly that most of the stocks are of unweaponized "precursors" which might rot in some underground facilities the "rebels" might not have access to even when they hang around on the airfield on the surface ... so maybe it's not that dramatic, but I also have a hard time imagining how the process of visiting those sites should function. --CE (talk) 23:15, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
November 2013
OPCW experts have so far visited 21 out of 23 chemical weapons sites across Syria. The two remaining facilities are currently too dangerous to visit due to military action between government forces and Islamist rebels.
According to the watchdog, chemical equipment from the unvisited facilities was moved to sites where the inspections were performed.
November 2014

RT's Oksana Boyko interviews Sigrid Kaag, the former (because of successful result against all odds) head of the UN-OPCW mission for the dismantling of Syria's chemical weapons. Now that's an impressive person. Some insights into behind-the-scenes diplomacy that counters the daily doom & gloom in the usual reporting about geopolitics. --CE (talk) 22:32, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Sources

September 2014

2015


2016

2017

  • Saudi-Made Chemical Weapons Were Delivered to Al Qaeda Rebels in Aleppo, Discovered by Syrian Forces - Alwaght, via Global Research, January 11, 2017
    Bags of material from Saudi company Sachlo were found in liberated areas - believed to be chlorine-related (company makes chlorine and aluminum)
  • Saudi King Sanctioned Chemical Weapons Use in Syria - Steven Sahiounie, AH Tribune, January 16, 2017
    Long timeline of facts and allegations, some perhaps new to us. In particular, under Summer, 2012, is this detailed entry:
    Zahran Alloush, the late commander of Jaysh al-Islam (Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan’s personal brigade in Syria) was one of the terrorists who had close relationship with Saudi intelligence services. Alloush was an expert in rocket attacks, and he bought 500 kilos sarin gas and cyanide, with an officer named Ayhan in the Turkish intelligence agency, from one of the countries of the Caucasus and an Eastern European country. He transferred these chemicals through Turkey into Syria. Saudi officials paid the cost of buying toxic gases through the local staff of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia, to the sellers of toxic gases account. The chemical gases were transferred to Turkey and Lebanon. The four cargoes came under the guise of petrochemicals into Syria. One cargo from Turkey and three others from North Lebanon were transferred with the help of a political character associated with Saudi Arabia.
    Original story about Saudi role and Alloush importing sarin appeared on two websites (veteranstoday.com and middleeastpress.com) on 29 August 2016. Both sites are conduits for Iranian disinformation. The story doesn't add up, but its recycling may be a sign that Iran and its allies want Saudi, rather than Turkey, to be blamed when the CW false flag story breaks. Pmr9 (talk) 00:03, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

2018

2021

Islamic State

Chlorine

  • With Friends Like These: US Stalls Kurdish Offensive Against Daesh in Iraq - Sputnik, February 12, 2016
    Sometime after the interview, d’Aymée also sent word that Daesh had deployed chemical weapons against his unit.
    "Daesh started shelling us with makeshift chlorine shells, and we only have medical masks for protection,” he wrote. “The medics were working all night. I hope that answers your question about the use of chemical weapons by Daesh."

Mustard gas

Attacking Europe?

  • British Minister claims ISIS planning chemical attack in the UK - Al Masdar News, January 1, 2017
    “The ambition of … Daesh (ISIS) is definitely mass-casualty attacks. They want to harm as many people as possible and terrorize as many people as possible,” Security Minister Ben Wallace emphasized in an interview published Sunday by the UK-based Sunday Times. “They have no moral objection to using chemical weapons against populations, and if they could, they would in this country. The casualty figures that could be involved would be everybody’s worst fear,” the minister noted. “We have certainly seen reports of them using it in Syria and Iraq [and] we have certainly seen aspirations for it in Europe.”