Aleppo University Attack

Twin explosions rocked a university in Syria's largest city of Aleppo on January 15, 2013, the first day of exams, killing a reported 87 people, students and others, and wounding hundreds. As usual, both sides blamed each other; rebels and activists blamed a government air strike, while the government blamed terrorist rockets fired from the northwest.

This page doesn't seek to cover the issue comprehensively, but to focus on key issues relating to settling that blame question. The content below is incomplete, with ongoing investigation, especially of the physical/visual evidence, being organized on the discussion page. At some point, the findings will be pasted up front (below), and elsewhere.

A Jet Strike or Not?
The answer to this central question, apparently, is "not."

Jet Witnesses Speak
Activists were always quite clear they saw and heard was a jet firing the missiles. Mohammed Sergie collected numerous accounts for Syria Deeply, summarizing their case for a jet attack (with three missiles, he incorrectly summarized). He also claimed that "people living in government-controlled areas of Syria ... aren’t allowed to film in public," perhaps explaining why there was no video of the jet. Some student back-and-forth tweets might be instructive. First, they describe loud blasts only, and then a consensus emerges that there were also jet sounds.
 * I heard the sounds, what was that ?
 * It’s like a rocket blast in my bedroom
 * Explosions between the humanities department and the dorms at the university
 * No, those weren’texplosions, they were air strikes, I heard them clearly.
 * I heard the planes as well.

"Edward Dark," an Aleppo resident using a pseudonym, "who used to support the revolution but now calls on the Syrian military to retake control of the city," came out blaming the government here in more Twitter messages: "Mate, nearly everyone in Aleppo saw it, there can be no doubt. A regime jet swooped low and fired rockets there. End of story." "I myself was driving up the road, just a few miles away from the jet strike. I clearly heard a jet fighter swooping, then a blast" Whether even this blast could be heard for miles, while driving inside a car, is at least somewhat questionable. Another user called Ahmedosios issued these two tweets: "A plane hit with two shells. We saw the plane with our own eyes. I am not going to doubt my eyes and believe regime media." "When the plane roamed above the university following the shelling, the university guards and soldiers told us, 'hide, the plane is back!'"

A student calling himself Simon told CNN "I was on campus when I heard a plane over head from a distance. Suddenly a loud explosion erupted just 50 meters away at the gates of the College of Architecture ... Minutes later a second blast exploded a few meters away." He mentions no jet before the second blast, and as we'll see below, video filmed from about 100 meters south of the blast has no audible jet sound whatsoever in the 28 seconds preceding it. A commentator on Infowars.com said "I’ll tell you what happened. The Syrian air force bombed it." A student he knew (a fan of his band) told him he "stayed home from classes that day to study, but saw the jets fly and drop their bombs." It should be noted the day in question, finals were being held university-wide. There's little reason to stay home from that except, perhaps, to obey the alleged rebel warning to stay home from classes, explaining "there will be no learning until the president is gone." (see below) This might make the student an anti-government activist, like the others cited, limiting his credibility like theirs is limited.

A doctor at the hospital treated the wounded, and was angry at those who “deny the accounts of witnesses to the massacre.” He didn't see the attack himself, but spun an imagined (fabricated) narrative based on what he heard. In part:
 * I can’t comprehend the malevolence of a pilot who guided his plane in broad daylight in front of 30,000 witnesses, calmly firing riockets and remaining over the target, proud of his achievement, before returning for another run three minutes later … then he waited for his political leadership to fabricate narratives.

This jet was also in front of numerous video cameras, which failed to see it or capture its sound.

Video and Expert Assessment
But the video never seemed to show this jet, or to have captured its noise. One early posting captured the sound of the explosion from behind buildings nearby. There was no preceding sound of a fighter jet's roaring engine. A second video surfaced on January 22 and quickly made waves with its new view from the front/west side of the stricken dorms, showing the apparent projectile and the massive blast. This spurred a new and more detailed round of analysis. At least two prominent media research people took the evidence to experts, and returned with two quite different conclusions.

James Miller of Enduring America has run two articles now since Jan.23: one "proving" a jet attack and the other sharing "definitive/conclusive evidence" of the jet attack, and then started an Aleppo University research project. The second link cited the "definitive evidence" as an unspecified number of "well-placed Western government officials in the region" and/or "arms experts" he spoke to, every one of which, with unexplained "technical" reasons, believes this was a fighter jet attack. They "can say with 'certainty' that the missiles were delivered by a jet, flying at altitude".'' How it masked its sound from video cameras is not explained.

Miller took these findings to the second source, as a counter-point offered in a comment (no response). This was a Jan. 23 article by Robert Mackey on his New York Times blog The Lede. Mackey made some sport of disproving the car bomb claims no one made, but otherwise refuted what activists had said.
 * According to Joseph Holliday, a former Army intelligence officer and a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War who studied the clip for The Lede, the video strongly suggests that a missile struck the university. “There’s no jet noise before or after the strike and only missiles would be supersonic – the ripping noise at the end is just the missile ripping through the air,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Add to all that the size of the blast definitely seems more like a ballistic missile than a bomb.”

Holliday suggests it was fired by the government: "the regime didn’t mean to target the university, but their Scuds just aren’t accurate enough and they screwed up – big time." Mackey continued:
 * Mr. Holliday showed the video to another analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, Christopher Harmer, a former naval officer, who observed: “I am 90 percent confident that is either a Scud or a large surface-to-surface rocket – that is much bigger than a Qassam or Katyusha. Might be a Fajr-5 rocket.” He arrived at that conclusion, he wrote, by the following process of elimination:


 * R.P.G.? No — explosion is too big. Mortar? No — explosion is too big for the size of mortars in theater. Artillery? No — explosion is too big for any of the artillery pieces in theater. Also, if it were fired by artillery, they would have heard firing. Airdropped bomb? Possible, but unlikely. No visual indication of jets in the area.

Mackey also cites his friend and NYT colleague C.J. Chivers: “this now appears to have been a military strike, with ordnance that the Free Syrian Army does not have,” as far as he knows, suggesting quite strongly it must have been a government strike after all. Chivers has been looking at missile craters for a while, and noted that, whatever model is being used, they "simply do not seem to come near their targets in many cases — they miss by a kilometer or more. And that may be what happened here."

However, there were two strikes, precisely near each other. Did the government "screw-up big time" in the same basic direction, twice in a row? Rather, as the government noted, this follow-on attack is more similar to the work of terrorists (if usually using car bombs, not rockets/missiles)

Syria Blamed Car Bombs?
While it's often repeated that the authorities blamed terrorist car bombs (or a car bomb) for the carnage at the universirty, this is not substantiated anywhere by any direct quote, named official, or any detail suggesting the claim is actually true. Citing all the instances would be tedious, but any check of the mainstream crtiques will show this is a leading argument - and it seems to be an urban legend.

What the Syrian "regime" said from the beginning was that two powerful surface rocket were, fired by a terrorist group a few kilometers to the northwest. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Jan. 15 "a terrorist group on Tuesday fired two rocket shells from al-Lairamoun area on Aleppo University, causing casualties and material damage," adding that similar rockets also hit the nearby Bani Zaid area. On Jan. 17, SANA cited the military's General Command repeating the exact story, adding that it "prompted the army to hit back against the gatherings of terrorists in the area."

It's been argued by some these reports might be edited later, since everyone knows the government first blamed car bombs rather than a fighter jet. But the Guardian reported at 2:21 GMT on the 15th "A Syrian government official in Damascus has told the Associated Press that two rockets hit the University of Aleppo's Information Technology Academy. The official said the two rockets were fired from a rebel-held area in Aleppo." The AP report, plus an AFP one mentioned, surely exist and will back this up. Syrian authorities can hardly be blamed for these confirmations.

There was an implied story change reported by ITV News' Bill Neely on January 16, but, he thought, the change was backwards from the one in question. "[The government] said initially two rockets were fired from a rebel-held area of the city and hit the university. [...] The government has now changed its position. Syria's Information Minister has just given me another explanation. Omran al-Zouabi says the Islamist extremist group Jabhat al Nusra is responsible." Nowhere is it specified this is a different terrorist group than they first blamed (it wasn't specified), or a different method. Al-Nusra does usually use car bombs, but they're only named as a guess, and it could be an al-Nusra rocket attack that al-Zouabi meant.

Unofficial pro-government sources do suggest, or are accused of saying, that car bombs were responsible. Al-Khabar, Google translated from Arabic, seems to say Turkish authorities ordered this attack, planned since January 9. Explosives were prepared "in a warehouse building near the university," then detonated there (by a car bomb?) followed by "two missiles."

Further, Addounia/Duniya TV, a private Syrian network, filed a report, apparently with presenter Shadi Helweh, that two sources suggest reported "a car bomb" or "a ground explosion." By both sources, Helweh was beaten up by "the students" for "the outright lie" or "lying in front of our eyes." The only relevant posting from Addounia that can be found on the Internet is an English sub-titled report from the 15th. By the subtitles anyway, their first take was exactly the government's - two rockets from Al-Lairamoun. The death of students and displaced people sheltering in the dorms are mentioned, along with rockets on Bani Zaid. A car bomb is not mentioned.

There is still no conclusive proof there wasn't a car bomb involved. While a surface-fired rocket is clearly indicated for the second strike, and generally accepted for the first, a scenario like Al-Khabar may have reported - beginning with a car bomb, and followed up with two rocket attacks - remains a possibility until it's been ruled out. And conversely, until it's proven it remains only a possibility. And until it's been shown to have been alleged by anyone relevant, it should be considered an irrelevant point at best, or a deceptive straw man argument at worst.

Official Investigation
(forthcoming - they've said what they've said, probably investigated, and perhaps published the findings. But they're not coming through clearly if so)

Al-Nusra Front Responsibility
The Al-Qaeda-affiliated designated terrorist group Jabhat Al-Nusra has not claimed responsibility for this attack, and probably never will. Nonetheless, it has been suspected by both sides. For example, the Guardian's Middle East live blog reported: "I’ve just been speaking to my colleague Martin Chulov, who has been in Aleppo today and yesterday. Martin said the suspicion among Aleppo rebels was that the opposition jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra was responsible for yesterday’s rocket attack on the university, which killed at least 87 people."

British ITV's International Editor Bill Neely reports from Damascus on January 16, on the government's explanation, which allegedly changed. First they said terrorists fired rockets. Now:
 * [Syria's Information Minister] Omran al-Zouabi says the Islamist extremist group Jabhat al Nusra is responsible. He says the twin explosions a few minutes apart, the intent to kill large numbers of people, the targeting of a government building and the capability of the group to do such a thing, all points to them as the most likely perpetrators. Al Nusra does indeed go in for spectacular mass killings. [...] But al Nusra doesn't claim its attacks. Its policy is secrecy; deeds not words.

This blame is clearly speculative, and, as noted above, it's not clear this is a changed story at all. Groups were fought in Al-Laraimoun, but perhaps there was no clear link to the attack found among them, and officials were still left guessing.

There is more direct evidence of Al-Nusra involvement alleged. The following claims from Facebook are unsubstantiated, but worthy of note in case they're true. From Facebook (2):
 * "Al Nusra Front, the terrorist group deemed al Qaeda in Syria adopted (claimed responsibility for) on its FB page for the attack on Aleppo University. The post was then deleted 12 minutes later. The post says the attack was by a suicide bomber in a car filled with explosives, targeting Aleppo University, shabiha and a security base. Though it's still not confirmed what the University was attacked with exactly, Al Nusra Front appears to have been behind the attack."

No links to this alleged Facebook page were provided. Another Facebook entry from the same person is perhaps conflating Al-Nusra with the rebel Free Syrian Army, whose colors seem to appear here:
 * "Al Nusra Front, the terrorist organization deemed al Qaeda in Syria has basically just exposed themselves as being behind the Aleppo University massacre which left 82 people dead by distributing leaflets in Aleppo, threatening the people against sending their children to the university for exams prior to the attack on the University.
 * This is one of the leaflets calling for boycotting the exams at Aleppo university. Before the Aleppo University massacre, FSA said, "there will be no learning until the president is gone," and they tried to hold true to this threat. Education and independent thinking are a major threat to these radical groups and their sponsors."

Timing
On the local level, the attack coincided with the first day of final exams. On the geopiltical timeline, As Syria's representative to the UN Dr. Bashar Al-Jaafari pointed out,
 * ''""The terrorist armed groups in my country always take advantage of a Security Council meeting to perpetrate a terrorist attack inside Syria and this is indeed what happened today perhaps for the 10th or 20th time since the crisis in my country began,""

He was speaking at a Security Council meeting, on the day of the attack itself. (Youtube video). It was a special meeting in Pakistan, about "conditions that feed terrorism". This came one day after the Security Council received a petition to seize members of the Libyan government for ICC trial, over "authorities' failure to investigate and prosecute war crimes allegedly committed since March 2011." These, as noted, are usually committed right before or during UN Security Council meetings, allegedly by the Syrian government but quite possibly by terrorists - feeding on conditions created by Security Council member states.

International reaction
"It is clear that this was a ruthless, bloody provocation, revenge by terrorists for significant losses they have sustained in the confrontation with government forces," Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in a statement.
 * http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/01/16/283911/russia-slams-attack-on-syrian-university/

Russian FM says he cannot imagine anything more blasphemous than CNN’s accusation of Syrian regime of being behind deadly Aleppo blasts.
 * Lavrov hits out at US for blaming Syria regime for blasts

How about this? The United States is appalled and saddened by the Syrian regime's deadly attack yesterday on the University of Aleppo," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
 * http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=56507

"SOHR (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights) holds the Syrian regime responsible for the Aleppo University massacre..."
 * https://www.facebook.com/syriaohr/posts/560068824022372

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon: U.N. chief condemns Aleppo attack, says targeting civilians a war crime: "Such heinous attacks are unacceptable and must stop immediately. All combating parties in Syria must abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law," Ban said in a statement. "Deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian targets constitutes a war crime." He doesn't specify who he thinks is guilty of the war crime.

A Photo
http://imgur.com/Lsj8N "20 of the students in this picture died yesterday in an airstrike on Aleppo University" (group photo, alive and well) One comment offers "BTW the writing on top says" university of architecture engineering."