UN report on Syrian chemical attack 'attempt to undermine Assad victory in Deir ez-Zor'

No inspectors went to Khan Sheikhoun to see if there had been a sarin attack or not. This report is an attempt to smear the Syrian government as war criminals after they defeated ISIS in Deir ez-Zor, Marwa Osman, political commentator, told RT.

The UN has released a report, which accuses the Syrian government of using chemical weapons against civilians in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in April of this year.

Dozens of people died in the attack.

RT:  This latest report blames Assad. What new evidence has come to light that an OPCW investigation failed to reveal earlier this year?

Marwa Osman: I think this is just the last case, or the last scenario in the hands of the West, especially the US-UK and its EU friends who were against the Syrian government, the Syrian army from the beginning of the crisis. But if you want to talk about the report, the actual information that was given by the report. If you go back to April 2017, just after Khan Sheikhoun, we had a professor, an actual expert on chemical attacks, an MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] professor called Theodore Postol, who actually managed to look at the video and photos that were sent. And just by looking at those photos he literally said this attack could not have happened. And he presented evidence, given the fact that the people were not dressed well for any sarin poisoning, especially after the attack. He presented evidence concerning the people who were there without any gloves, without even any shoes on their feet.

Since Khan Sheikhoun up until now, you see what happened with the new report from the UN. It is typical and identical to the US report that was given and endorsed by the White House, by the American government itself, with senior US administrative officials with them saying and acknowledging that their information comes from social media reports. Mind you – that is the same social media that gave us the fake ‘mannequin challenge’ in Idlib. So these social media reports, this is the information based upon the decision made by the US report, and therefore the reports made by the UN. And even those US officials back then said that the story actually fits what they think happened. All of this being mentioned right now is just because of one fact – the fact that there was no investigation, there were no inspectors that went to Khan Sheikhoun and inspected the area to see if that was sarin attack or not; what dropped, or if it was a sort of other chemical attack by a certain group within the area. 

RT:  This was an inquiry into the civil war in Syria, but it seems to have become more focused on Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons. Why is that?

MO: It is. If you look at how the events have been going over the past four months, especially what happened yesterday with the liberation of Deir ez-Zor…It is a very important timing. It is at a time when the Syrian government along with its allies is eradicating ISIS completely from the Syrian soil, and maybe focusing more on other al-Qaeda groups in the future. So it is very important timing. And at the same time, it is very important to the timing of the next week’s talks in Astana, especially with the latest statements coming from  Staffan de Mistura himself, acknowledging the fact that the opposition did not win the war – actually lost the war - telling them that they should acknowledge this. So this was the last straw for them to try and use against the Syrian government to try and label them as either monsters, or war criminals at a time when the Syrian Arab Army is liberating and eradicating terrorism from its soil – that was helped, supported, funded and aided by these same Western governments that are endorsing this UN report.

If I may remind you what happened during Khan Sheikhoun and the images that we saw – by the images themselves it is just shouts out that the people that were found in those videos and photos they were either extremely ignorant about the basic measures to be taken by an individual to protect themselves from any exposure to sarin poisoning, or they basically knew that there was no contamination to begin with. And the question we need also to ask: why didn’t the UN send any inspectors despite the fact that both the Syrian government and its biggest ally – the Russian government - demanded an investigation and inspectors to come down to Khan Sheikhoun, since they are already friends with al-Qaeda in Idlib, and try to investigate what happened?