Eye Spy - May 2018

28 EYE SPY INTELLIGENCE MAGAZINE 115 2018

DEFUSING THE ATTACK

Moscow continues to insist the alleged WMD
attack was staged to discredit its ally
President Bashar-al Assad and brought a
group of Syrians to the global chemical arms
watchdog to back its claims.

As for the ‘collected evidence’, Russia
paraded several Syrian witnesses, including
an 11-year-old boy, in a bid to prove the
chemical attack in Douma was faked. Young
Hassan Diab was filmed being doused in
water at a hospital following the horrific attack.
However at a joint press conference with
Syrian officials at the Organisation for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),
Russian diplomats claimed the video was fake
and Hassan had been tricked into taking part.
To counter further Western claims of WMD
use, Russia’s permanent representative to the
UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told the Security
Council Moscow’s own military specialists
had visited Douma and taken soil samples.
According to its specialists, they found no
evidence or presence of nerve agents or
substances containing chlorine. “No one with
these symptoms had been admitted to local
hospitals,” he said. “No bodies of people who

had died from being poisoned were found.”

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov called

the evidence secured by Britain as a “blatant

lie” and “bizarre.” However, he refrained from

suggesting the UK was responsible.

Britain’s UN Ambassador Karen Pierce, said

the suggestion

was “grotesque

and a blatant

lie,” following

an emergency

meeting of the

UN Security

Council.

Inspectors have

now finally

visited one of

the sites of the

alleged attack -

but their visit

was heavily delayed after they were shot at

when approaching the area.

DIVIDING ALLIES

On 28 April, the foreign ministers of Russia,

Iran and Turkey held talks on Syria in the wake

of the attack. The three nations have been

attempting to find a political solution to the

Syrian conflict at talks that star ted in 2017 in

Astana, Kazakhstan, in competition with the

US and UN-backed Geneva initiative. Iran’s

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called Trump,

Macron and May “criminals.”

However, Turkey President Recep Tayyip

Erdogan welcomed Western air strikes in

retaliation as appropriate. “I curse those who

carried out this massacre,” he said.

French president Emmanuel Macron sug-

gested the air strikes had driven a wedge

between Ankara and Moscow as they have

been building increasingly close ties. This

prompted an angry denial from Turkey Foreign

Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who said the

countries’ relations “are not so weak that the

French president can break them.”

Alexander Shumilin, a West Asia exper t at the

Institute for US and Canadian Studies in

Moscow, however, said Douma fallout had

“caused a crack in the alliance of the three

countries.” He added: “If the trio falls apart

entirely, the ensuing events could be really

bad. Turkey has a completely different attitude

to resolving the conflict and Assad’s fate.”

Other intelligence analysts believe Iran is

seeking to destabilise the region and have

described the trio as a “very shaky alliance.”

The new chemical attack came just over a

year after a similar Syrian operation targeted

the town of Khan Sheikhoun. US forces in this

case bombed a Syrian air base from whence

the air attack had been launched. At the time,

President Trump said the action was taken to

deter fur ther Syrian use of illegal weapons.

A building destroyed in the allied attack on Syrian WMD sites

Karen Pierce

Civilians flee following the WMD strike

in Douma, Syria

Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the

West’s response “appropriate”

United Nations Security Council

meet to discuss the alleged use of

WMD on civilians in Syria