Aleppo "Playground Napalm Massacre"

August 26, 2013, just as a BBC News crew arrived in Oram al-Kubra, Aleppo province, the Syrian air force allegedly dropped an incendiary bomb on a school, which was both in session and hosting a crowd of all ages. Students, babies, and men and at least a woman suffered horrible burns, and a reported ten children and five adults died. The BBC captured dramatic and upsetting footage of the aftermath as 30 victims were treated at a rebel-run field hospital. Some were taken to Turkey for intensive care, but some died en route. The agent, and all relevant details, remain unclear.

As the BBC's Ian Pannel later wrote "It is hard to imagine or to describe the horrors of what the pilot did." It's at least as difficult to explain how we can be sure it was a pilot at all. Witnesses who felt like speaking at the rebel clinic blamed a government fighter jet for the attack. Sure that will suffice for many, but others have higher standards. The details will be examined , to some extent, on the discussion page.

An activist using the BBC's appeals process for editorial standards made a long-term project of getting the record corrected regarding their napalm incident coverage. The dedicated site reported that on 20 January, 2015, the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee" published its "final decision on my complaint" was published on the BBC website, providing an annotated copy here. Then Robert Stuart, apparently the correspondent behind all this, announced on Twitter February 22 that the Trust would issue one more ruling on that appeal on February 26.

One of the more interesting turns from this ongoing probe was a statement from "a former commander of the Al-Tawhid Brigade" who reportedly said (not verified):

“We the fighters of the Free Syrian Army in the North West areas of the City of Aleppo we declare that we were present in this region in August 2013 and we did not meet any air strike with the substance of Napalm on Urum al Kubra or on any other region in the North West Aleppo countryside and we deny the cheap fabrication of the BBC and of the stations that imitate her because it undermine the credibility of the Free Syrian Army”.

Sources

• BBC News, August 29: Syria crisis: Incendiary bomb victims 'like the walking dead'
• BBC September 29: Syria: Agony of victims of 'napalm-like' school bombing

• Free Halab: Children burned alive in napalm playground massacre. Has numerous videos, a prime source of visuals for anyone so inclined.

For any sane person, the BBC report suffices. However, in a world where hundreds of massacres are imagined to be staged “and-or[!]” committed by the victims just to get on the news to advance the great conspiracy, it might not.

• Fabrication in BBC Panorama's 'Saving Syria’s Children' - a whole blog dedicated to "Correspondence with the BBC over allegations that the Panorama documentary 'Saving Syria's Children' broadcast on 30 September 2013 included staged sequences purporting to show the aftermath of an alleged incendiary bomb attack on an Aleppo school on 26 August 2013" with detailed analysis, as sent to BBC complaints department for investigation by their board of trustees.

Location

Urm al-Kubra is also the site of the attack on the Red Crescent convoy in September 2016.

• “Napalm bomb” school located - Fabrication in BBC Panorama 'Saving Syria’s Children, December 10, 2016