Talk:Alleged Chemical Attack Khan Sheikhoun 4 April 2017

Initial Story
Maybe the incident was today? 4 April? Need confirmation. I assumed it was yesterday because of the quantity of images and media dissemination in essentially only a couple of hours. I just saw one report of an ambulance service driving from Idlib at 06:30 local time --Charles Wood (talk) 10:56, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Low sunlight in some photos suggests it's near sunset on the 3rd or sunrise on the 4th. Whatever is specified - if the date's wrong, probably worth an early move to new page, but no panic. We'll figure it out soon. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:38, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * This NY Times Report says the attack occurred at dawn on 4 April 2017. Another report I saw had a private ambulance service start driving to the scene from Idlib at 06:30. Sunrise in the area is 06:17 and it's starting to get light 30 minutes before say 05:47. One consequence is the victims especially children should be in night clothing. --Charles Wood (talk) 20:31, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Reports on Twitter show images branded with White Helmets / Syrian Civil Defence logo. The images are obviously screenshots of video. Images appear to show predominately youths and infants dead. There are also images of WH personnel spraying bodies (alive or dead?) with water.

Symptoms are consistent with Sarin in that there is profuse white foam on the mouths of some victims. However there is no sign of incontinence or vomit - most victims are in their underwear so it would be obvious.

More images at Twitter Thomas Van Linge However he is not a primary source and is repeating images provided ultimately by the White Helmets. --Charles Wood (talk) 08:27, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

More tweets: --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:37, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thomas Van Linge: local sources are now reporting 70 dead and 500 affected by the chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun
 * Thomas Van Linge: Video(18+): 43 children that have suffocated to death in alleged chemical attack targeting civilians in #Idlib
 * AEJKhalil: DEATH TOLL RISES TO 70 MARTYRS SO FAR, 200 WOUNDED #RUSSIA/#ASSAD TERRORISTS SARIN GAS ATTAK
 * AEJKhalil: (photos, noting mostly children)
 * AEJKhalil: (bearded man with foam that's perhaps too white and too copious to be genuine)

Death Toll
... (currently reported at 70, and perhaps rising) ... ... Now 100+ and 400 injured ... ... (earlier it was dozens, 38, 54, etc.) ...


 * The SOHR cites at least 72 dead, including at least 20 children. (tweet - tweet)


 * The UOSSM cites over 100 (twet - tweet)


 * The VDC so far lists 69 killed including 69 civilians and zero rebel fighters. 27 men, 16 boys, 19 women, 7 girls. There are 19 named Yousef (9 men, 4 boys, 5 women, one girl), 8 named Qadah, 5 named Khaled, etc. It says most from Khan Sheikhoun, several from Morek, Marzaf, Latamna, blank. None is listed as from Khattab.
 * The Yousefs should normally have other women attached, with their fathers' names as usual for observant Muslims. Five women to eight men (and one girl, and just 4 boys) is just high enough to wonder if these are married couples. That would suggest Christians, or at least secular-leaning "modern" people. In fact VDC says Malak Turky al-Yousef is married to Nihad Alyousef, but Safia is Wife of Najeeb al-Jawhar, and the others are marital status unknown. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:23, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Later on, VDC lists 79. 8 men were added, 1 boy, 1 girl. Still 19 Yousefs. They're not done counting, and even when they are, they often stop short of the largest (and sometimes most likely) tallies (see the Dec. 12 sarin attack) --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:57, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Some reports say 43 children were killed, suggesting an overall death toll more in the 100+ range. I'm sure rebels could scrape up at least that for something important enough. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:23, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Telegraph sourced wire story naming or identifying 19 victims of the family of Abdulhamid al-Youssef. Some interesting detail e.g."The smell reached us here in the centre; it smelled like rotten food. We've received victims of chlorine before – this was completely different."


 * FYI Rotting potatoes in basement kill four members of Russian family - a possible cause? --Charles Wood (talk) 03:24, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Ugh. Of course vaguely rotten smells, and others ("like burning nylon") often come with use of kitchen grade sarin. A yellow plume is mentioned, etc. so clearly they don't even care they're reporting the kind of sarin their own terrorist friends are known to have. I guess? --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:57, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

In Context
At 70 and perhaps still rising, this would be the third largest alleged death toll from an alleged CW attack in Syria so far. For reference:
 * 1) 21 August, 2013, Ghouta, Damascus: regime sarin rockets blamed, min 420, max 1,429 killed
 * 2)  12 December, 2016, near Uqrabiyat, Hama: reported 93 or more killed, Russian sarin bombs are blamed
 * 3) this - likely to be the same story as above.


 * At 100+ it'll be #2, but that's how I made the list. The April 2014 JaN attack in Nawa, Deraa, killed about 70 soldiers and almost belongs. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:32, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

No one much heard of the December incident, but it might rise again now as 'a shamefully-ignored precedent'. That was in 3 towns in rural Hama run by ISIS. Russian bombing, probably with sarin, was blamed. Now that it's in the turf of the overtly foreign-supported Islamists, the claim has a much, much higher chance of serious and even sustained media coverage (people care, or are supposed to care, just as little about ISIS claims as they do about Syrian government claims)

Also for context on how the rebels encounter these high death tolls in these top 3 cases:
 * 1) evidence suggests it was hostages killed in gas chambers with a variety of non-sarin chemicals, sometimes finished off with neck wounds)
 * 2) evidence is extremely sparse, so the picture isn't clear, but it seems likely to be the same kind of scenario
 * 3) evidence is fairly copious, likely to yield some good clues (that may reflect back on the above precedent case) --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:24, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Preceding Reports
30 March 2017, Latamina, Hama Chemical Weapons Attack in Latamneh, Hama Injures 70. The source is UOSSM. More links on HDBG's twitter feed, including a video showing miosis and a link to a report in which a doctor attributes the attack to "organic phosphorus". Possible motive is to draw US into supporting a safe zone in NW Syria --Pmr9 (talk) 12:43, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Ok, that's odd. March 25 was the chlorine attack that killed Dr. Darwish at the cave hospital. I think that's Dr. Islams' video on that day where he said chlorine, but then said in the tweet they thought it was sarin. Or was that from March 30? Then March 30 and mixed claims including sarin signs and chlorine reports - and now sarin overtly claimed ... I guess the regime trying to sneak it back in under cover of their "accepted" chlorine use? Wouldn't that just shame us all for our silence? --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:30, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Head Wounds
Fainting is reported, and some people will bonk their heads on something when that happens. Charles mentioned this first I think, but I agree there are too many and too severe wounds on the heads (and maybe necks) of these children.

Suggested pattern: children are killed by blows to the head, while fighting age males (13 and up) have their throats sliced. Strange reluctance of Islamists to go ahead and use CWs when they're alleging it, or failure to do it right, requiring some finishing work. All things we've seen before. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:50, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Taken to the Monitor already

That bright red blood of two of the kids essentially proves that those kids did not die from sarin. Looks like the little girl was still bleeding when they laid her down on the stone-pavement. Looks like the boy at the top had his L ear to the pavement first, blood ran from his nose, and then he turned his head and the blood ran the other way. The odd way his neck is wrapped is suspicious.

Also, that may be a syringe lying across the seam at the top of the image. I’ve tried to enhance it, but it doesn’t help much. Can't figure out how to add images to this comment.

The face of the child second from the top is weird. Noseless. Bruise under R eye. Not sure where shadow stops and skin begins, but magnifying the face makes it even more weird. The cast shadow from the head doesn't seem to match the head. Pierpont (talk) 18:51, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Timing
It's worth noting this attack - blamed on Syria or Russia (unclear so far) comes just as news broke of an apparent terrorist bombing in St. Petersburg (exact timing not clear yet) - the two events possibly help explain each other - Russia getting its fair retribution, or maybe taking unfair revenge ... and then likely not. It's a thought. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:56, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Checked location - and the province it is in, barely in Idlib, to not look as dumb as the Pentagon. ;o) It is there up center north to see on the Hama frontline image, but it's a good chunk away from the frontlines, savely hidden behind "rebel" stronghold Morek/Mork. This comes as their annual Hama offensive has turned out to be another desaster, and as Peto Lucem wrote as description to the latest map, they lost 85% of their temporal gains. Loss of fighters seems to be massive, as the SAA by now knows how to let them come and then greet them in open field.
 * At this point the mad butcher Assad decides to draw a little attention to this by slaughtering some innocent kids - how typical of him! --CE (talk) 11:19, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Clearly the local battlefield timing is probably more relevant. Obvious revenge for the recent offensive, taken out on random innocents with something pointless and criminal. Seen that before. But if this comes out as a big bad Russian sarin attack, then that Russia connection will also stand out as likely. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:35, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Another thought, there was the third batch of green bus rides from al-Waer to Idlib on April 1, several hundred "rebels" with families. I could imagine Khan Sheikhoun would be one of the nearest "safe" spots in Idlib province to drop them when you start from Homs, and it's directly at the M5 motorway. Possible victim group of "traitors" who had surrendered to the regime? --CE (talk) 11:55, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Actually we do not even know when the Ghouta CW attack happened. There was a coordinated release of videos. They could have been filmed weeks earlier. We never saw any sign of the funerals or the grave sites. The same here, the coordinated release could have been prepared for days or weeks. One source hinted this already happened 5 days ago. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Orient TV reporter Firas Karam tweets at 0:06 am GMT on April 4, 2017 (mirror) Translated by Within Syria‏. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 19:07, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * ''"tomorrow we are launching a media campaign to cover the airstrikes on Hama country side including the usage of CW"
 * No, I think that refers to a second Latamna chlorine attack after the one they say killed Dr. Darwish. It's not far away though. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:34, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Or... it was at the time, and now maybe it's this event, as discussed below ... (catching up) --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:37, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

All 10 rebel news agencies say this happened on April 4th, most with their own video. Half the world's media say this happened on April 4th. The White Helmets cave complex was bombed and partly destroyed on April 4th. Could all this happen on the same day? This is not the Al-Lataminah cave compound. If the stone wall is facing south, then the gas victims are seen 8 am in the morning, the bombed out building is shown around 5 pm. This video of the bombing is uploaded at 13:26:39 UTC, so it breaks the timeline. The Russian MoD says that the Syrian Airforce bombed an "ammunition dump containing chemical weapons" east of the town of Khan Sheikhoun. There is a stone quarry 1.5 km east of Khan Sheikhoun that could maybe be the White Helmets site. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 10:21, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Video of purported bomb strikes on Khan Sheikhoun uploaded 04:59 am UTC 4 Apr 2107. Local time 07:59 am. Sunrise at location is 06:14. This indicates that if image is as stated and it was uploaded on the same day the incident occurred, the strikes occurred some time between 06:14am and say 07:30am.

Russian statement also refers to strikes between 11:30am and 12:30pm local time, so a second series of strikes seems likely.


 * Further statements about the first attack put it at 06:30 local time - which is not implausible given the sun angle. --Charles Wood (talk) 21:00, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

The morning strikes are conventional ANFO bombs of the type used by SyAAF. These are not at all suitable to deliver a nerve-gas payload. --Charles Wood (talk) 20:18, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Trying to time a non-event that did not happen is like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
 * Anyway, this video from the White Helmets compound seems to be the earliest. It is filmed just after sunrise. The upload by the White Helmets is not the original. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:56, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * That upload time is 09:14 local time so 2:45 after potential gas exposure. However as you note, this is recycled video and there are upload delays, so its closer to 06:30 - say 07:00? --Charles Wood (talk) 03:07, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

My impression is that Russia and Syria government report on what they have available, that there was an attack by their side in the afternoon. Knowing that chemical attack was reported in social media, they conjecture that rebel chemical weap. storage was hit. If chemical incident was definitely earlier, that may still be that it was provocation by the rebels (and rebels would benefit more, by far) --Resup (talk) 06:15, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Possible kidnapping cues

 * ''(See below for the .)

Just out, a piece by Leith Fadel about civilians, who were kidnapped in Khattab (the closest to Hama the offensive went) on the weekend before the army took it back, and "all taken to Khan Sheikhoun". Number unknown, allegedly reported by a family member. No connection to this event alleged (by Leith). --CE (talk) 13:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, this has the signs of hostage massacre. Typically in history rebels and other less civilized combatants have killed their hostages right before they have been forced to retreat from a town. Were the people killed in their home towns or where they transported before the massacre. Maybe the adults had been killed earlier and the children moved to Khan Sheikhoun. But why kill them now? Revenge? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Antonopoulos has now written that it had been around 250 people kidnapped, from Khattab and Majdal, and that "local sources" claim to have identified some from the dead. He also points out that on the video material there are openings seen carved into rock. A "missile factory" with enough room to host 250 hostages and maybe stocks of some chemical junk material? Maybe worth to take a look on the map. Later. --CE (talk) 14:40, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Thomas van Linge tweets, using Aleppo Media Center photos:
 * ''Syria: warplanes also struck a @SyriaCivilDef center in Khan Shaykhun, further hindering rescue operations in the struck city
 * The three photos show the same compound as in the CW victim photos. I am now more convinced that this is the Lataminah cave compound.
 * So what happened first? Did AssadPutin bomb the place before or after the dead CW victims were brought over for treatment? Update: The bombing happened later, the building is still intact in the chemical victim videos. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:05, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * His next tweet shows "Turkish medical workers" in Turk-oise shoes "wearing fully protective suits when transporting the victims of the chemical attack to #Turkey" Huh? Where is this coming from? --CE (talk) 21:18, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Just put this to the news - Turkish Health Ministry says 31 victims were brought to Turkey, three of them died, the autopsies point to exposure to Sarin. Justice Minister says "it has been determined that al-Assad used chemical weapons". *sigh* --CE (talk) 15:46, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * P.S. - Here is a video by Hadi Alabdallah of the compound after the alleged attack. This should be enough for geolocation. + three more videos -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:24, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Shady photographer
The photo linked by Petri, taken by Ammar Abdullah for Reuters and reproduced in the Guardian, shows that this is some kind of quarry with passages in the rock wall. Whether this is the Lataminah compound I'm not able to judge, but it doesn't make any sense for the children to be in a place like this unless they were captives: it's not where their homes were, and it's not a hospital. I think serious consideration should be given to Petri's suggestion that the massacre was carried out on 30 March in Lataminah, reported by UOSSM at the time as causing 70 casualties but no fatalities, and that the videos recorded on that day were uploaded today as showing a chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun. Are there any videos of the 30 March attack? Pmr9 (talk) 18:31, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * If you look at the old videos you will see that the cave compound was also a field hospital. On the Guardian photo you see two ambulances. I think this cave is a White Helmets compound. (This does not exclude it being a al-Qaeda compound at the same time.) -- 18:53, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Unsurprisingly there are some pics on Ammar Abdullah's Reuters page that show he's deeply embedded with Nusra. Here family photos with a commander of a Nusra subdivision, there right at the place to film the green buses go up in flames during the Aleppo evacuation. --CE (talk) 19:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Shady doctor
Some shady "doctors" (and Mohammed Alloush) in this twitter thread linked in the Antonopoulos article. Connections? --CE (talk) 18:44, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Dr Shajul Islam, apparently in charge of the hospital in Khan Sheikhoun, is definitely shady, and is no longer a doctor, at least in the UK. Some commentators have noted that in the middle of a mass casualty incident he was more concerned with tweeting and making videos than with attending to patients.


 * Shajul Islam, who qualified in London, was struck off the UK medical register in 2013 (http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1831). He had been arrested on returning to the UK from Syria in 2012, and charged with kidnapping two journalists: John Cantlie, and Jeroen Oerlemans. However the trial collapsed when the two victims failed to appear as prosecution witnesses: Cantlie had been kidnapped again alongside James Foley.  It's not clear what happened to Oerlemans.  This didn't stop the General Medical Council, which is not bound by the same rules of evidence, from striking him off. Pmr9 (talk) 22:00, 4 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, fascinating. --CE (talk) 06:06, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Ditto - this (or all personnel) deserve a section. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:37, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * For those interested in detail, I've done a frame-by-frame analysis of Shajul Islam's (SI) 10.5 minute rolling selfie. I was trying to find evidence that inculpates sarin and, not unexpectedly, found mostly the opposite. There are a number of oddities, also not unexpected. Here are a couple of observations.
 * * One can tell by shifting shadows that SI's vid was made over quite a few hours. One view is well into the afternoon. There is a lot of editing, and yet the version of the vid I looked at was uploaded to YT at 4:30pm on Apr04, local time.
 * * Weird demographics. Twelve victims are shown -- 10 males, 1 female, 1 infant. None of the males have beards. (So? Just a statistical anomaly.) Dozens of "workers" are milling around, grab-assing, only two women and you really have to be looking to spot them.
 * * SI's entire point is showing pinpoint pupils (miosis)-- that is the only "evidence" of sarin he can come up with, and it's risible. One victim is throwing up, but SI doesn't mention it, apparently because he doesn't know enough about organophosphate toxicity to know what the symptoms are. Besides, given the red coloration of almost all of the patients in this vid, sarin is not a possibility.
 * Khan Sheikhoun looks like Ghouta II to me, but I've just started wading through vids. Very grateful for Petri's play-list. I'm going to wager 5-6 hours of effort that I'll be able to find a bunch of workers from SI's clinic in KS wandering around in the Kafr Batna videos.Pierpont (talk) 19:26, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi Denis, good to see you working on this. As you mention it yourself - the "Israel" thing slipped into your linked analysis as well, at least twice. While not unfunny, maybe not the best thing to have in a text directed at the intended audience that usually doesn't look into things like this. ;o) --CE (talk) 21:12, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Denis, welcome back. I've edited the above text to use "SI" to denote Shajul Islam - using just his surname doesn't read well. Bernhard (blogger of Moon of Alabama) has speculated that SI's trial in 2013 may have been allowed to collapse as part of a deal in which he was co-opted by MI6 and allowed to return to Syria. This seems plausible.  I think it's increasingly clear that this operation wasn't something the opposition did by themselves but is supported by a large scale information operation in US and UK media: for instance this article by Kareem Shaheen].  The central role of the UK-sponsored White Helmets and Hamish DBG's instant endorsement of the regime attack story also point to UK involvement.


 * As for whether sarin was used here, I think there are strong indications from current news reports, including Chulov's article linked below, that the planners of this operation expect that samples will be produced that test positive for sarin. This may include not just blood samples but samples taken from the bodies of victims shipped to Turkey.  If they used sarin anywhere, it's likely to have been out at the quarry, where they have protective gear, rather than at the hospital site. Pmr9 (talk) 22:01, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Any idea where the hospital/clinic is? "Ishmael" (:-) talks about victims coming from Khan Sheikhoun indicating he is some other town. --Charles Wood (talk) 21:39, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Denis, I've gone over your frame by frame. It all sounds pretty good, especially point 40 and the bagging of 'evidence' - that is so twee it has to be staged! I also noted the lower level of consciousness of most. That's not a symptom I recognise. Or they were all sedated as part of treatment?


 * Not sure where the Cyanide bit came in. That would need dark lips and fingernails for that. Not sure I noticed any. I did notice dark lips in the photo of several youth's stacked on on a truck tray, with 'St George' underwear - but not obvious darkening of fingernails - see IdlibGasDead1.jpg (NB - the centre kid also has rosy cheeks and thighs) --Charles Wood (talk) 22:35, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Alleged bomb location
Telegraph article Gives specific location for one bomb strike "Corniche St" in the north part of the town. We have already seen an alleged fresh crater near the grain silos/bakery. I assume Corniche St is nearby? I can't find any street map to confirm. One other snippt is the wind is listed as blowing to the west - that's consistent with the Hama weather data. It also makes the Bellingcat 'analysis' somewhat dubious. --Charles Wood (talk) 03:19, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Whora Hora

 * ''(I have decided to name this place Whora Hora after bin Laden's more famous cave hideout and hospital. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 20:36, 6 April 2017 (UTC) )

I found one possible location for the White Helmets cave complex. There is a plot for a warehouse carved into the hillside on the eastern side of the M5 motorway, 1.2 km north, northeast of the point where the missile struck next to the grain silos. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 00:47, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

...but Aldin on Twitter found the real one. No coordinates. :( -- 05:09, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This is at 35.441414, 36.671107 just outside the eastern edge of the town. Between the time of the google maps photo and the more recent satellite photo there have been large-scale excavations, and ventilation shafts have appeared in the field above the quarry.


 * As there was a hospital in town under the direction of struck-off Dr Shajul Islam, there was no reason for casualties to have taken to this quarry outside town. It's interesting that one of the photos uploaded by Petri shows a child being carried out of one of the bunkers by the WH cameraman who was photographed from behind by the Reuters cameraman. A careful comparison of videos and stills for continuity errors may show that children are decontaminated after they come out of the bunker, with obvious implications. Pmr9 (talk) 16:29, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Is this the al-Lataminah cave compound?

 * ''(No, it is not.)

Yes, the location of the White Helmets base must be the Al-Lataminah cave compound just south of Al-Lataminah. It was bombed by Russia on the first day of their campaign. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 17:25, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Lataminah is about eight kilometers south-west of Khan Sheikhoun, I don't think the SAA would be confusing them. The thesis that it happened and was filmed earlier is interesting, though. FWIW, here's a marker on wikimapia in Khan Sheikhoun which is eight years old, on something that could be a small rocky formation, with the first comment reading autotranslated "Ohla Abu Yahya .. King of Khan Sheikun and neighboring areas, we forget the sweet days in the university city and the moments of land bread and the voice of the breads of the bread from the decks like Grad missiles atmosphere". --CE (talk) 19:02, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

...or is it Camp Khazanat?
Rescanning wikimapia following this morning's Konashenkov statement, on the eastern outskirts of the town there is a "Camp Khazanat Army fueling base" complete with "vehicle shelters" and "underground fueling storage" that looks like it could fit our "quarry" of interest. --CE (talk) 06:06, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The facility in the videos shows the facility was surrounded by green fields. The Camp Khazanat Army fueling base is surrounded by olive groves
 * There are numerous limestone quarries around Khan Sheikhoun especially to the East and North. Some of them are surrounded by fields, not olive groves.
 * Ian Grant suggests this facility to east of Town is the site. He has a better resolution photo showing air-vents in the fields to the North of it. See His Tweet with image
 * The gas related attack occurred before dawn. The Russian attacks occurred 11:30 to 12:30 local time.
 * The SyAAF doesn't have a history of night operational sorties - with the exception of some L-39 flights that don't appear to be offensive in nature. --Charles Wood (talk) 06:47, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

No luck finding any visuals of the place so far, but I found this tweet from February 23, 2017 by @markito0171:
 * #Syria ~80 corpses found in fuel-tanks of Camp "Khazanat"/Khan Shaykhun -executed by "Liwa al Aqsa" before their retreat to #IslamicState

--CE (talk) 06:24, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * That does sound intriguing - and I was going to suggest the same spot before work, noting the underground storage notes. But ... --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:06, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This may be video of the 80 bodies. Massacre tanks in Khan Shaikhoun (Feb 25, 2017) -- Petri Krohn (talk) 10:54, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Having now looked, camp khazanat doesn't seem at all cliffy enough. And now I'm about 70% sure it's the Latamnah compound as Petri suggests. The images are afternoon sunlight. If that conflicts with anything, great. Otherwise, I wouldn't say people lived or were gassed here. It's supposed to have a hospital, and the victims seem trucked in. It's not so far from Khan Sheikhoun that doesn't make sense - this might be the best hospital around for CW victims (the mud bath by un-suited men isn't encouraging, but...) Graphic forthcoming. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:06, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Here is a photo of the Al-Lataminah cave compound. I do not think they match. Besides, the Khan Sheikhoun caves must be facing south. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 11:04, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Nice video find, Petri. I see nothing that would say it is NOT the place. It's a rather large area on the map, and they are on top of something. At 0:11 you can see that they are partly surrounded by the sort of green knolls we see in the event videos, and at 4:01 the camera goes over what seems to be a road carved into the surface through the whole picture, with people standing in front and behind it, and a higher structure to the left. Inside of that could be what we are searching for. Nothing definitive, but nothing to dismiss it either.
 * CL, your attempted match doesn't really convince me. The greens should be on different sides of the "road", the curves seem wrong, the buildings don't seem to match. --CE (talk) 14:38, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I just noticed that all but one comment on the video are from the last 24 hours. I ran them through translation and they are all from knuckleheads cursing Assad in flowery poems, not realizing the date of the video. Somebody sells it as from the current "chemical weapons" event. --CE (talk) 15:07, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Another video of the body recovery. At 0:29 a White Helmet is interviewed in front of a cliff similar to the White Helmets base. They could have come back to base for the interview. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 00:04, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Okay, it seemed a good fit from the little I could see, but I guess it's not even that. The sun would be too low for that azimuth, come to think of it. I won't be digging for where this happened. It might be useful, but ... definitely too much going on. I'm skipping some stuff. --Caustic Logic (talk) 09:18, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Weather & gas extent
According to Intellicast, weather at Hama (close enough) had light winds from the East / East NE sector at 6 mph around dawn.

This means any gas plumes would head west and a bit south from impact points.

Wind speed was ~ 6mph / 2.6m/s. The sky was partly cloudy. Temperature a cool 48F / 9C. This implies a stable gas plume that is not very wide but quite long. Typically lethal maybe up to 10m either side of centreline for 500m max 1000m. Numbers will vary depending on buildings and local topography. The plume will be a bit snakey but always quite thin.

People on ground level would be affected, but a couple of storeys up and they would only get minor eye irritation.

This is assuming only a single 122m size missile delivered the gas. NB Syria has no 122mm rocket gas capability. Iraq did have that type of missile. --Charles Wood (talk) 20:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Russian Version of Events
Russian spokesman Konschenkov made a statement to the effect the gas was released from a weapons factory. Second-hand source at Al-MAsdar news (can we get a better source?)

The BBC has now weighed in quoting Hamist DeBretton Gordon dismissing the claim.


 * A chemical weapons expert, Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, told the BBC that the Russian version of events was "pretty fanciful". The idea that a nerve gas like Sarin could spread after a weapons manufacturing process had been bombed was "unsustainable", he added.

The HDBG objection apparently includes the assumption the chemicals are being manufactured on the site - rather than being assembled into weapons for shipment using shipped in precursor materials.

Sarin is usually delivered as a binary weapon with in-flight mixing, though immediate pre-launch mixing is possible. In either case precursors are kept in close proximity and accidental mixing by nearby explosion is quite feasible.

Further, the main precursor ingredient of binary Sarin is either methylphosphonyl difluoride or a mix of methylphosphonyl difluoride and methylphosphonyl dichloride. Both chemicals are extremely toxic and produce nerve-gas symptoms including death in sufficient concentration.

A plausible inference is containers of one or both precursor chemicals was ruptured in the raid and produced the symptoms. --Charles Wood (talk) 11:24, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I've sourced the Konashenkov statement now with TASS on the frontpage. The biggest remaining (see my observations on the Khazanat video Petri found) problem to make sense of this, in any way, seems to be the off timing you pointed out, with the admitted Syrian strike around noon while the videos show and have been released much earlier (at least the latter on the same day). --CE (talk) 18:49, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * NY Times article puts it variously before 7am and before first prayers (quote text may have changed? I'm sure it said Mariam was being examined at first prayers) -
 * A 14-year-old resident of the attacked town, Mariam Abu Khalil, said she had left home for her examination on the Quran — scheduled for early morning because fewer bombings were expected then — when the attack took place. On the way, she saw an aircraft drop a bomb on a one-story building a few dozen yards away. In a telephone interview Tuesday night, she described an explosion like a yellow mushroom cloud that stung her eyes. “It was like a winter fog,” she said.
 * Quite what a 14 year old girls is doing being examined on the Koran remains to be explained. --Charles Wood (talk) 19:38, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * First Prayer, Fajr, 04:47 am. Sunrise 06:14 am - see Syria Prayer Times --Charles Wood (talk) 19:45, 5 April 2017 (UTC)


 * FWIW and because I love the guy and don't know where else to put it, here's a just released video from our old friend Texas from Donbass. He's in a bar with a very french Frenchman who says he fought in Singal with the Kurds (where they liberated the Jezidis) and twice witnessed ISIS using poison gas against them. Texas doesn't know about the timing problem and therefore takes this as an example why the straight-forward and logical Russian/Syrian version (including the claim that the stuff was produced to be used in Iraq) is correct. --CE (talk) 19:30, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Bodies of the Child Victims
Notice there are no videos of Khan Sheikhoun locals claiming/grieving over the bodies of the children displayed by the White Helmets. Where were these children really from and who killed them? --Withnail (talk) 12:18, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * A good observation! -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:20, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Haven't noticed any yet, and if there are any such scenes, they might well be fake. And welcome, Withnail! --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:42, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Telegraph sourced report has story on father with twin sons and extended family - total 22 dead. Abdulhamid al-Youssef is claimed to have lost his children and wife. There is other video available at a cemetery that appears to be the same guy.

First of all I doubt 19 people died. Exaggeration is the norm in Syria. I am also mildly suspicious that any of his family died. At best what we see is the man with two dead infants, one with an obvious head injury. There is no indication he is actually the father. --Charles Wood (talk) 06:57, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Okay, for example this ... I can't get the video to play now, so I'm flying blind but if the story is surviving dad who was off somewhere, whose family was left behind and killed, and he gets the bodies to bury no problem, and is fine being on camera ... My gut feeling is: they aren't his kids, but kidnap massacre victims getting laundered in the media. Surviving fathers seem like this from the Houla Massacre forward. Often one baby of the family survives along with him, and he just spews rebel talking points as he confirms their BS story.


 * So I'd guess none of HIS family died, but exactly 22 of some kidnapped family did die. Or 23, with dad not listed, to make room for this impostor. Yousef might be their real name, but likely not, and might be his name or not (more likely his, or maybe no one's... you can only speculate so far). --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:15, 6 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The violations centre list 50 odd named casualties - all of course from poison gas. No-one got blown up in those massive blasts. Various flavours of al-Youssef are listed as dead. Perhaps the majority? I think it's a local tribal name? Abdulhamid started off with 19 dead relatives at the hospital. By the time he got to the cemetery it was 23. They must be dying like flies! --Charles Wood (talk) 13:21, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The Daily Mail I think it was provided a photo of the twins (just the twins) prior to death, but strangely nobody seems able to find a photo of proud father Abdulhamid al-Youssef with said twins, alive. Withnail (talk) 18:17, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Sample collection and lab tests
Martin Chulov in the Guardian reports that samples are being collected.

Rescue workers have gathered soil samples from the scene of a chemical weapons attack in northern Syria and sent them to western intelligence officials, who are seeking to determine precisely what nerve agent was used in one of the worst atrocities of the country’s six-year war.

''Samples taken from the scene in Khan Sheikhun, as well as biological specimens taken from survivors and casualties, will be compared with samples taken by intelligence officials from the Syrian military stockpile when it was withdrawn from the country in late 2013. Syria’s stores of sarin are known to have particular properties which experts say can be forensically matched to samples taken in the field.''

Hersh has reported that samples of the sarin binaries destroyed on the MV Cape Ray were found not to match the Ghouta sarin. This report suggests that some new deception is being planned. It's possible that some intelligence agency has got hold of a small quantity of sarin binaries from the Syrian stocks that were destroyed on the Cape Ray, and that this will be used to generate a false match. Pmr9 (talk) 17:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The entire chain of custody of both samples and survivors will be exclusively in the hands of various anti regime bodies. Withnail (talk) 18:12, 6 April 2017 (UTC)