Independent Investigation of Syria Chemical Attack Videos and Child Abductions

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

ISTEAMS is a team of interdenominational religious and lay observers from communities and spiritual centers in and outside of Syria, as well journalists. At considerable risk in the present terrorist insurgency, ISTEAMS independently investigated the chemical weapons attack in the town of East Ghouta on August 21, 2013, as well as the video media purporting to document these events. This
report is being produced for the International Institute for Peace, Justice and Human Rights

The findings and evidence of ISTEAMS’ initial report strongly refute the claims by US
UK Saudi Turkish Israeli and other Western interventionists. These claims are largely based on video evidence of this mass murder produced by Syrian insurgents and terrorists. For this reason, a rush translation of ISTEAMS’ working document on the Ghouta massacre and related atrocities and child abductions in Latakia, Syria, has been produced to inform international public opinion and do justice to the innocent
victims of these crimes. The draft report includes a Name List of abducted children and women who may have been massacred by the Syrian insurgents who perpetrated the Ghouta outrage.

Finding: Ghouta Chemical Weapons Massacre Videos Preceded the Attack

The 13 videos purporting to show the events in East Ghouta during the early morning of August 21 were complete and were uploaded to the YouTube social media site in California, USA, in advance of the earliest reports of the attack. Logs of activity on YouTube as well as downloads of the material by ISTEAMS members show that the videos were produced before the claimed chemical massacre.

Finding: Ghouta Is a Ghost Town, the Population All Fled the Rebels

East Ghouta is a distant eastern suburb (exurb) of Damascus that was until recently a farming community. The urban population came mostly from Damascus and fled there as refugees to family members when rebels seized the town. Ghouta is no longer a community that includes women and children, but rather an armed camp of militant men, including many violent zealots. The social picture represented in insurgent videos is at complete variance with the demographic facts and street
scenes of Ghouta under occupation there are no women or children to be seen at all.
Also, insurgent medical responders appearing in videos revealed that large numbers of children casualties were sleeping dormitory style in a few facilities, where they were all killed by gas in the early hours of August 21st. Even though the children were assembled together in Ghouta, their names are never given.

Finding: Major Medical Discrepancies in Videos

Medical personnel presented in the videos and subquent news presentations by al Jazeera differ starkly in their factual accounts of events, the availability of medication and its efficacy in the situation, and their personal safety while working with chemical weapons victims and environments.

Finding: No Women; Children Shown Sleeping on Floors in Street Clothes

Videos depicting the casualties show large numbers of children supposedly sleeping on floors and wearing day clothes. Families shown together also wear day clothes.

Finding: Staged and Fake Images

A sensational photograph claimed as proof of the attack actually shows casualties from an Egyptian riot. Other images are obviously staged and many use victims as props. Still others appear to show children dead, and then subsequently alive. This is unlawful propaganda of the most cynical and ghoulish kind.

Finding: Victims May Be Abducted Women and Children from Latakia

Possibly most disturbing, the findings of this initial report establish multiple connections between the Ghouta massacre and a series of terrorist massacres and wholesale abductions in several towns in western Syria during several days in early August 2013. These massacres occurred in the region surrounding the seaport of Latikia.

CONCLUSION

Ghouta Child Victims Were Abducted by Terrorists from Latakia

After insurgents murdered the men in these communities, they organized mass abductions of the surviving women and children. ISTEAMS’ report includes evidence that links these abductions to the ensuing chemical attack(s) that killed mainly women, children, and infants in Ghouta, east of Damascus, on August 21, 2013. Women and children who were disappeared after their families were massacred in Latakia appear to be among the Ghouta victims shown in western propaganda videos.

This preliminary report was prepared by ISTEAMS investigators and observers of all faiths working inside and outside the Syrian Arab Republic, as well as independent European and Australian journalists supporting Syrian sectarian and secular reconciliation (al Mussalaha)

General Coordination of ISTREAMS investigation by Sister Agnes Miriam de la Croix, St. James Monastery (Greek Catholic Rite).

ISTeams-Ghouta-Rreport

2 Comments

  1. Pingback: Syria: Deciphering the Propaganda War over the Ghoula massacre | Ceasefire Magazine

  2. Pingback: Syria: Deciphering the Propaganda War over the Ghouta massacre | Ceasefire Magazine

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