Fox News claims that Syria's Assad gives go ahead for gas attack

[mojo]

President Bashar al-Assad has approved a gas attack in the Idlib province, which is the country’s last rebel stronghold. Where is the rest of World ie The EU????? Where's is NATO? Why does the U.S. need to be the World Police? There should be a World outcry by every Country.

[ichingcarpenter]

White Helmets........ well I'll be, what a surprise.

[mojo]

White Helmets........ well I'll be, what a surprise.

I don't understand that comment?

[Hervé]

Syria's Assad gives go ahead for gas attack
Source? Onion? CNN? Sorcha Faal? McCain?

[mojo]

oops sorry didnt realize the story was so new

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/09/10/syrias-assad-approves-gas-attack-in-idlib-despite-warning-report-says.html

[Ascension]

Atrocity propaganda for the win! Babies are the best for regime change support.

[chancy]

White Helmets........ well I'll be, what a surprise.

Hello Everyone:

It's interesting you mentioned the "white hats"! Unfortunately they are ALL moving to Canada as we speak. Prime minister Trudeau gave them all safe passage and almost citizenship "landed immigrant status"
It's really interesting how they buffaloed their way to canada instead of helping people like I thought that's what they lived for?

By the way I have studied and research Assad for months and months. I have listened to foreign reporters and personally I don't think assad is doing the chemical weapons in Syria.
I personally think this is propaganda from what I have found out by researching this subject.

chancy

[ichingcarpenter]

chancy neither do I............MOD>>> Why is this thread in Health and Wellness?

[Ernie Nemeth]

I have no way to know but I also don't think it is Assad. Why would he actually admit it and give warning? This sounds like the same old horse patties the US globalists would use. Russia has the largest fleet ever in the gulf. China is not far off. They would not let Assad use chemical weapons even if he wanted to. But the Globalists? Right up their alley.

[Bill Ryan]

I have no way to know but I also don't think it is Assad.

The story is VERY unlikely to have any substance. Assad has been demonized for years by the entire western media-intel apparatus. This is almost certainly more of the same.

[Baby Steps]

Inescapable logic:

If the us/uk/france guarantees retaliation against Assad's forces for any alleged chemical attack that occurs( or is said to have occurred on a shaky social media video), they are effectively giving the rebel opposition a powerful incentive to either use these things or fake their use.

The attacks( by the west) are launched without any prior verification, let alone due process, or attempt to follow agreed OPCW procedure.

The substances to be used could be, like chlorine, basic industrial commodities that are easy to obtain and transport.

This feels like an end game. The shadowy leakers are saying that it is all coming soon ( earth shattering government destroying disclosures), the western governments are talking up confrontation in a way that they never would during the cold war, the Russians are doing the biggest war games since the cold war, and we have a certain 17th anniversary coming.

[5th]

I'm surprised that anyone on here takes mainstream news at face value. It also amazes me that a gullible public would actually believe that there are so many leaders 'killing their own people'. A little research shows that the vast majority of Syrian Muslims and Christians support Assad and this is the very reason that the terrorist NATO forces have been unable to topple him for so many years (how long did it take in Iraq?).

Bill may be polite in his comment but I would suggest that mojo has blindly swallowed the endless US propaganda about Assad and Syria - whereas the truth is that our military are the bad guys and our mainstream news is fabricating lie after lie about ALL of the wars being fought for 'peace and justice'. In truth, they are being fought to line the pockets of the owners of the Military Industrial Complex (and media owners) to the tune of billions of dollars a year. Where does that money come from? From tax payers like mojo who've been convinced the wars are righteous wars. Good con trick, eh?

[mojo]

From tax payers like mojo who've been convinced the wars are righteous wars. Good con trick, eh?


How rude of you... This thread is about saying gasing of any people is wrong.

[Noelle]

There may be no gas attacks at all in the works. That's my humble hunch. I remember going through this with Trump and North Korea, all the childish bluster, but a few months later we saw (on our TV or laptop screens) a summit.

Also, the Fox News' piece names no sources.

President Bashar al-Assad has approved a gas attack in the Idlib province, which is the country’s last rebel stronghold, a report on Sunday said.

Reports of Assad's approval comes about a week after President Trump warned the strongman and his allies not to “recklessly attack” the province. Trump called any gas attack a potential “grave humanitarian mistake.”

The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials, was first to report on Assad.

It smells fabricated to me, and, of course, I hope it is, Mojo.:Angel: I choose, for the moment, to not get too excited.

[Dennis Leahy]

President Bashar al-Assad has approved a gas attack in the Idlib province, which is the country’s last rebel stronghold. Where is the rest of World ie The EU????? Where's is NATO? Why does the U.S. need to be the World Police? There should be a World outcry by every Country.

Mojo, your title is 100% bullsh!t - proven BS! Assad has never gassed his people. There have been several PROVEN false flag "attacks", staged by the "White Helmets", a fake humanitarian group that are really terrorists.

Mods, please take this thread down, or change the title immediately. Avalon must not be used as a tool of the CIA/MI6.

[mojo]

Me too... Let me apologize for not being so clear on the opening post. The whole intent was to say the focus of all countries should be as a unified front to such evil things. I think we can all agree on that.

[Honesty]

How the hell would anyone KNOW that Assad gave that specific approval. It's ALL staged...

[Bill Ryan]

Me too... Let me apologize for not being so clear on the opening post. The whole intent was to say the focus of all countries should be as a unified front to such evil things. I think we can all agree on that.

Yes, let's restore some calm here. We know you intended no harm. :)

I've changed the title to Fox News claims that Syria's Assad gives go ahead for gas attack (which is 100% accurate!)‚ and moved the thread to Manipulation in the Media (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/forumdisplay.php?167-Manipulation-in-the-Media).

[ThePythonicCow]

Also, the Fox News' piece names no sources.

President Bashar al-Assad has approved a gas attack in the Idlib province, which is the country’s last rebel stronghold, a report on Sunday said.

Reports of Assad's approval comes about a week after President Trump warned the strongman and his allies not to “recklessly attack” the province. Trump called any gas attack a potential “grave humanitarian mistake.”

The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials, was first to report on Assad.

It smells fabricated to me, and, of course, I hope it is, Mojo.:Angel: I choose, for the moment, to not get too excited.

Fox does provide a link to a source ... if one looks a little bit further in that Fox post, one gets to a link of the relevant Wall Street Journal article.

This Fox article continues:

U.N. officials believe an offensive on Idlib would trigger a wave of displacement that could uproot an estimated 800,000 people and discourage refugees from returning home. The U.S. and France have warned an Idlib offensive would trigger a humanitarian crisis and warned that a chemical attack in Idlib would prompt a western retaliation.

The Wall Street Journal reported (https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-says-syria-plans-gas-attack-in-rebel-stronghold-1536535853) that the international pressure did little to sway Assad, who benefits from support from Russia and Iran. The report said Assad has approved the use of chlorine gas.
That link goes to a Sept. 9, 2018 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article by Dion Nissenbaum with a title and subtitle of:

U.S. Says Syria Plans Gas Attack in Rebel Stronghold

Chlorine assault would target Idlib in what could be a decisive battle in seven-year war, raising prospects for new retaliatory strike as thousands flee
If one clicks on that WSJ link embedded in the Fox News article, you end up seeing a version of the WSJ article that is mostly behind their paywall.

However it seems that if you go directly to that WSJ link (https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-says-syria-plans-gas-attack-in-rebel-stronghold-1536535853), you can see the entire WSJ article.

Most of the WSJ article discusses how regrettable it would be for Assad to use chemical weapons and the various ways in which the United States and its allies would respond.

Here are the portions of that WSJ article that actually claim that Assad might use chemical weapons:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



U.S. Says Syria Plans Gas Attack in Rebel Stronghold

Chlorine assault would target Idlib in what could be a decisive battle in seven-year war, raising prospects for new retaliatory strike as thousands flee

By Dion Nissenbaum
Updated Sept. 9, 2018 7:35 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has approved the use of chlorine gas in an offensive against the country’s last major rebel stronghold, U.S. officials said, raising the prospects for another retaliatory U.S. military strike as thousands try to escape what could be a decisive battle in the seven-year-old war.

...
Fears of a massacre have been fueled by new U.S. intelligence indicating Mr. Assad has cleared the way for the military to use chlorine gas in any offensive, U.S. officials said. It wasn’t clear from the latest intelligence if Mr. Assad also had given the military permission to use sarin gas, the deadly nerve agent used several times in previous regime attacks on rebel-held areas. It is banned under international law.

...
—Raja Abdulrahim in Beirut contributed to this article.

Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com

Appeared in the September 10, 2018, print edition as 'Assad Is Planning Chlorine Attack, U.S. Says.'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Personally, I would trust Syrian President al-Assad standing beside me with a can of mustard gas in his hand a lot more than I would trust the integrity of anonymous U.S. "intelligence officials" claiming that Assad might use chemical weapons.

[ThePythonicCow]

How the hell would anyone KNOW that Assad gave that specific approval. It's ALL staged...

At best, what Fox News knows is what the Wall Street Journal wrote, and at best, what the Wall Street Journal knew (as seen in the article I just quoted from above) is what some U.S. "intelligence" "official" told them.

[Dennis Leahy]

Name the "US officials", wall street journal. It's needed for the warrant to arrest them.

[Valerie Villars]

Sometimes I think the only way we are going to get the truth, is by sharing information with each other, from all over the world with people we know and trust.

Dumb question, but does anyone know someone in Syria who they trust, just an average Joe, who could give some insight?

[mojo]

Thank you Bill. No way did I set out to start a divisive thread. I'm sure it's related to all the political fallout. And thanks changing the title. Bet you changed a few 30-50 by now of mine to make posts clearer... ;)

[ichingcarpenter]

So it hasn't happened yet and the white hats have a picture of the future?

NICE PHOTO IN YOUR POST

blow up the photo it comes from the white hats.

[mojo]

The issue goes back some years and in this 2013 speech Obama shares his feelings. It seems to me that both Administrations want to end the problem....


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[ThePythonicCow]

President Bashar al-Assad has approved a gas attack in the Idlib province, which is the country’s last rebel stronghold. Where is the rest of World ie The EU????? Where's is NATO? Why does the U.S. need to be the World Police? There should be a World outcry by every Country.
There is substantial connection between this thread, and another thread: USA, INC.'s Trump Gives Go-Ahead for False Flag Gas Attack in Syria (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?104252-USA-INC.-s-Trump-Gives-Go-Ahead-for-False-Flag-Gas-Attack-in-Syria&p=1247554&viewfull=1#post1247554).

In one case, it is supposedly Syrian President Assad who has given the go ahead, and in the other case it is US President Trump who has done so.

[ThePythonicCow]

James Howard Kunstler, in an article over at Russia Insider, does a fine job of explaining what might be behind these bogus claims of another chemical weapon attack in Syria, whether supposedly authorized by Assad or by Trump.

In his article Are US 'Intel' Geniuses Ginning Up ANOTHER Syria Gassing Hoax to Distract From Their Legal Jeopardy at Home? (https://russia-insider.com/en/are-us-intel-geniuses-ginning-another-syria-gassing-hoax-distract-their-legal-jeopardy-home/ri24721), Kunstler writes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are US 'Intel' Geniuses Ginning Up ANOTHER Syria Gassing Hoax to Distract From Their Legal Jeopardy at Home?

"Excuse me if I am skeptical about anything the US Intel “community” dredges up these days in the way of breaking news. Branches of that sprawling vine are already infected with creeping rot."

And so the Golden Golem of Greatness re-enters the hall of mirrors that Syria has become. The US intelligence “community” has informed the US Media that Syrian President Assad is planning a new gas attack on Idlib Province, where a ragtag army of US-backed “rebels” (ISIS, etc) remain holed up against Assad’s forces backed by Russian air support. Have we seen this movie before?

Is Mr. Assad truly that dumb? — since the last time a gas attack was alleged (and actually never proven), Mr. Trump averred that he would attack Syria. And what did he even mean by that? Send a barrel bomb down the Assad family chimney, or just blow up more stuff on the ground? And for what? To birth another failed state in the Middle East (just what the world needs), or perhaps start World War Three with Russia? (Ditto, with a cherry on top.)

Excuse me if I am skeptical about anything the US intel “community” dredges up these days in the way of breaking news. Branches of that sprawling vine are already infected with creeping rot. I speak, of course, of the upper echelons of the FBI especially and their counterparts in the CIA orbit (ex-Directors John Brennan, Michael Hayden, ex DNI James Clapper and their cronies still on-the-job). Just as there is loose talk about an Assad gas attack, there’s also a lot of loose talk around the Internet that a large number of US intel communitarians are about to be busted for their political misconduct around the 2016 election. I’ll believe that when I see it on Glenn Greenwald’s Twitter feed.

Anyway, the Assad gas attack story does raise the question whether the intel community is ginning up a gigantic and ugly distraction from its own inconvenient legal exposure. Mounting evidence shows an orchestrated campaign by them to meddle in the 2016 elections, and continue meddling afterward to thwart, discredit, delegitimize, and defame Mr. Trump, for the purpose of leaving him little room to act. To a considerable extent, the Golden Golem of Greatness has managed to act anyway. For instance, transforming the Supreme Court.

The likely confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh may be a last straw for the “Resistance.” It would certainly affect the adjudication of any new disputes that arise over relations between Mr. Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the weeks ahead. The Mueller investigation into 2016 election “collusion” between Russia and Trump looks more and more like a case of displacement-projection syndrome, since dumpster-loads of evidence now point to collusion between the Hillary campaign, the DNC, a cast of rogue spooks from the CIA, various FBI officers, and British Intelligence in a scheme that is now going to grand juries.

...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's quite a bit more to Kunstler's article, at Are US 'Intel' Geniuses Ginning Up ANOTHER Syria Gassing Hoax to Distract From Their Legal Jeopardy at Home? (https://russia-insider.com/en/are-us-intel-geniuses-ginning-another-syria-gassing-hoax-distract-their-legal-jeopardy-home/ri24721)

Enjoy -- my guess is that this is one of, if not the key, operations being laid down by the American Deep State Intelligence (hardly "American" and hardly "Intelligent", but certainly Deeply embedded in the State) to exert some leverage over Donald Trump and offer some distraction to the American people, in order to blunt the force of criminal and treasonous revelations and prosecutions being unveiled by Trump's administration.

I am crossing my fingers and toes in hope that all this sound and fury over potential or supposedly authorized (whether by Syrian Assad or American Trump) chemical weapons attacks are an indication that the Deep State actually lacks the reliable ability anymore to pull off such an attack, and so must resort to shouting about the threat of the possibility of an attack.

In any case I certainly share Kunstler's skepticism over anything that US "Intelligence" dredges up these days in the way of breaking news, and it is self evident to me that both of these stories, one blaming Assad and one blaming Trump, have their origins in the treasonous and murderous halls of US "Intelligence."

[Dennis Leahy]

The issue goes back some years and in this 2013 speech Obama shares his feelings. It seems to me that both Administrations want to end the problem....
...
No, this is simply the previous war criminal US president following Deep State orders - which we citizens became acutely aware of with the revelations of the PNAC documents, and slapped with cold water by ret. General Wesley Clark telling us about "7 countries in 5 years."

Obama is a very polished, articulate, glib, psychopathic mobster, with a big Deep State hand up his backside, not some sweet kindergarten teacher who wants to give the world a hug.

The US State Department admits that Assad and the Syrian Army (the real one) is winning, and was winning before each of the false-flage "gas attacks" were staged. It's not even a good, logical ruse that the Deep State is peddling. To believe them, you have to believe that Assad was winning the war against the terrorists (ISIS, al Qaeda, alNusra - all controlled and funded by the CIA, Mossad, and Saudi Arabia), and to celebrate, he decided to gas some of his citizens, thereby turning the entire world against him? Does that make any sense to you?

http://www.leahyguitars.com/Imagez/AssadIllogical.jpg

http://www.leahyguitars/Imagez/AssadIllogical.jpg

[Dennis Leahy]

Sometimes I think the only way we are going to get the truth, is by sharing information with each other, from all over the world with people we know and trust.

Dumb question, but does anyone know someone in Syria who they trust, just an average Joe, who could give some insight?
Look up Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett. It's nearly 3 am and I'm crashing, or I'd go get some links to share ...

[Deux Corbeaux]

It's always the same, GAMES FOR GAINS, in whatever form.
Those kind of games can have very disastrous outcomes eventually.

It needs quite some discernment to be able to recognize them all the time.

[Jayke]

Sometimes I think the only way we are going to get the truth, is by sharing information with each other, from all over the world with people we know and trust.

Dumb question, but does anyone know someone in Syria who they trust, just an average Joe, who could give some insight?

PartisanGirl, that’s her twitter and YouTube name at least. She’s been reporting on the Syrian side of the story since the “intelligence” communities war to overthrow Assad began.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Partisangirl?ref_src=twsrc%5Eappleios%7Ctwcamp%5Esafari%7Ctwgr%5Eprofile

https://www.bitchute.com/channel/partisangirl/

A5bBWRB0FJs

[Baby Steps]

It's always the same, GAMES FOR GAINS, in whatever form.
Those kind of games can have very disastrous outcomes eventually.

It needs quite some discernment to be able to recognize them all the time.

Its a very high stakes game as the truth about Syria (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?93699-Syria-critical-info-dump&p=1103233&viewfull=1#post1103233) will bring down governments!

(AS IT SHOULD)

God bless.

[Deux Corbeaux]

It's always the same, GAMES FOR GAINS, in whatever form.
Those kind of games can have very disastrous outcomes eventually.

It needs quite some discernment to be able to recognize them all the time.

Its a very high stakes game as the truth about Syria (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?93699-Syria-critical-info-dump&p=1103233&viewfull=1#post1103233) will bring down governments!

(AS IT SHOULD)

God bless.

Yes Baby Steps, you are right!


Dutch funded ‘jihadist’ group in Syria, terror trial may now falter

September 11, 2018

DutchNews.nl: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/09/dutch-funded-jihadist-group-in-syria-terror-trial-may-now-falter/

[Baby Steps]

From RT:


Footage, meant to serve as proof that the Syrian government has conducted a chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria, is to be handed to global news outlets by the end of Tuesday, the Russian military claims.
Several Middle East TV channels and one US news channel have been sent to the city of Jisr al-Shughur in Syria’s Idlib governorate to produce the footage needed for the provocation, a statement by the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation said in a statement.

The statement said an Islamist group was provided with two canisters of a “chlorine-based chemical” for the purpose of the operation.

The Russian military said the footage would include scenes of White Helmets operatives treating supposed victims of an apparent barrel bomb chemical weapon attack by Damascus.

https://www.rt.com/news/438158-staged-chemical-attack-idlib/

[Deux Corbeaux]

From RT:


Footage, meant to serve as proof that the Syrian government has conducted a chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria, is to be handed to global news outlets by the end of Tuesday, the Russian military claims.
Several Middle East TV channels and one US news channel have been sent to the city of Jisr al-Shughur in Syria’s Idlib governorate to produce the footage needed for the provocation, a statement by the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation said in a statement.

The statement said an Islamist group was provided with two canisters of a “chlorine-based chemical” for the purpose of the operation.

The Russian military said the footage would include scenes of White Helmets operatives treating supposed victims of an apparent barrel bomb chemical weapon attack by Damascus.

https://www.rt.com/news/438158-staged-chemical-attack-idlib/

As is said in the RT article:
Moscow has repeatedly warned that a false flag chemical weapon attack was being prepared in Idlib, giving the US and its allies justification to attack Syrian government forces. Senior US officials have threatened Damascus with retaliation if it uses chemical weapons in Idlib and even preemptively assigned the blame for any such attack to the government.

There we go again.

.. and I hear my friends say: "Oh, it's RT. Don't listen to them. They are Russians, they can't be trusted. You have to listen to the western MSM......... ".
(Is there an emoticon for fainting, or frustration?)

add


So it hasn't happened yet and the white hats have a picture of the future?

NICE PHOTO IN YOUR POST

blow up the photo it comes from the white hats.

They will probably come up with that same picture the OP posted, of the White Helmets guy helping the kid.

[Hervé]

Filming of staged chemical attack in Syrian Idlib begins - Russian MoD (https://www.rt.com/news/438158-staged-chemical-attack-idlib/)

RT
Published time: 11 Sep, 2018 11:25
Edited time: 11 Sep, 2018 12:10
Get short URL (https://on.rt.com/9e32)


https://cdni.rt.com/files/2018.09/article/5b97afd9fc7e93725d8b4603.jpg
FILE PHOTO. Aftermath of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Eastern Ghouta in April 2018. © White Helmets / Reuters


Footage, meant to serve as proof that the Syrian government has conducted a chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria, is to be handed to global news outlets by the end of Tuesday, the Russian military claims.


https://cdni.rt.com/files/2018.09/thumbnail/5b93b2e4dda4c8720a8b45eb.jpg (https://www.rt.com/news/437953-idlib-syria-attack-terrorists/)
FILE PHOTO: A man tries an improvised gas mask in Idlib, Syria © Khalil Ashawi / Reuters

Several Middle East TV channels and a US news channel have been sent to Jisr al-Shughur in Syria’s Idlib Governorate to produce the footage needed for the provocation, a statement by the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation said. It added the intelligence came from local residents of Jisr al-Shughur.

“All the footage of the staged provocation in Jisr al-Shughur is to be delivered to the newsrooms of TV channels, which are to broadcast it after its publication on social media,” the statement claimed.

It also said that an Islamist group was provided with two canisters of a “chlorine-based chemical” for the purpose of the operation.

The Russian military said the footage would include scenes of White Helmets operatives treating supposed victims of an apparent barrel bomb chemical weapon attack by Damascus.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that a false flag chemical weapon attack was being prepared in Idlib, giving the US and its allies justification to attack Syrian government forces. Senior US officials have threatened (https://www.rt.com/usa/438107-bolton-syria-response-stronger/) Damascus with retaliation if it uses chemical weapons in Idlib and even preemptively assigned the blame for any such attack to the government.


Related:
Terrorists & White Helmets met in Idlib to prep for final stage false flag chem attack – Russian MoD (https://www.rt.com/news/437953-idlib-syria-attack-terrorists/)

[shaberon]

Yes, they're getting trigger happy, American news people with MI6 are going in there to Hollywood of Idlib to cook up some excuse for the so-called "stronger response". In the East with some Kurds they are building up equipment and forces and causing all kinds of problems. But yeah, the chemical thing should be their excuse for missile attacks, however it's being watched. I don't know if exposure actually stops it from happening. The third side of Turkey is in there in a big way to be the one who cleans up Idlib.

Syria actually imposed a cease fire in the area due to the gas thing. Meanwhile, they are still digging up civilians that the U. S. killed last year.

[Tintin]

Sometimes I think the only way we are going to get the truth, is by sharing information with each other, from all over the world with people we know and trust.

Dumb question, but does anyone know someone in Syria who they trust, just an average Joe, who could give some insight?
Look up Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett. It's nearly 3 am and I'm crashing, or I'd go get some links to share ...

Absolutely, yes :thumbsup: - all the way with those two. Absolutely the very best for Syria related material.

Eva Bartlett Twitter here (https://twitter.com/EvaKBartlett/status/1039579411568320512)

Vanessa Beeley can be found here (https://thewallwillfall.org/author/farashah77/) and her Twitter is here (https://twitter.com/VanessaBeeley):
39075

[Tintin]

WORKING GROUP ON SYRIA, PROPAGANDA and MEDIA

Its list of members can be seen here: http://syriapropagandamedia.org/about/members

Tim Hayward is one of the researchers and members involved in this working group and the following extremely well presented and necessarily exhaustive and detailed report summary provides very good background indeed to events going on in Syria since at least 2014.

I've lifted the Summary from here for now as it serves a critical brief.

It is intelligently and objectively written, and thorough in its content and I’d recommend this as an absolute must read for members and guests alike wishing to try and make sense of the conflicting messages being broadcast. [Tintin]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DOUMA: Alleged Chemical Attack – in Depth Briefing from Members of the Working Group on Syria Propaganda and Media

The Full Report here (http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/briefing-note-the-alleged-chemical-attack-in-douma-on-7-april-2018-and-other-alleged-chlorine-attacks-in-syria-since-2014)

Briefing note: the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018, and other alleged chlorine attacks in Syria since 2014

vanessa beeley | August 22, 2018

Paul McKeigue, Jake Mason, David Miller, Piers Robinson

1. SUMMARY

• Early statements by the US and French governments that a nerve agent had been used in the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018 were rebutted by the OPCW Fact-Finding mission which reported that neither environmental samples obtained on-site nor blood samples from purported victims contained any trace of nerve agent. This indicates that the US and French governments were poorly informed at the time of the US-led missile attack on Syria on 14 April.

• The Prime Minister misled the House of Commons by stating on 16 April that the OPCW team had been prevented from visiting the Douma attack site by the Syrian authorities and the Russian military, and may also have misled the House by stating that the US-led missile attack was “specifically targeted at three sites” allegedly associated with chemical weapons (rather than targeted on Syrian military infrastructure as reported elsewhere).

• The OPCW Fact-Finding Mission did not reach any conclusion as to whether a chemical attack had taken place. The detection of chlorinated organic compounds in environmental samples is consistent with release of chlorine from a gas cylinder at the two alleged attack sites, but this does not distinguish between a chemical attack and a staged incident.

• Experts agreed that the images showing bodies of victims lying close together in an apartment building were not compatible with exposure only to chlorine, from which the victims would have been able to escape by moving to the windows or leaving the building. This is supported by experience of industrial accidents with chlorine in which those exposed are usually able to escape.

• As no nerve agent degradation products were detected and the positions of the victims’ bodies are not compatible with death from chlorine exposure on the spot, the only remaining explanation is that the victims were killed by other means.

• Other observations favour a managed massacre rather than a chemical attack as the explanation for the Douma incident:-





• the positioning of the gas cylinders is more consistent with staging than with an air-dropped munition
• at the site where most victims were shown, a fire was lit in the room underneath the gas cylinder.

• For chlorine to be useful as a weapon, it would have to be released on an industrial scale as in 1915 rather than as a single cylinder or barrel dropped from the air.

• Assessments by the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission that chlorine had been used as a weapon in Syria between 2014 and 2017 were based on secondary sources without on-site inspections. This violates a precept that OPCW had set for itself in 2013.

• The conclusions of the Fact-Finding Mission that use of chlorine in alleged attacks in Syria between 2014 and 2018 was “likely” or supported “with a high degree of confidence” relied on witnesses and samples provided by purported non-governmental organizations with access to opposition-held areas of Syria. These organizations included:





• a “CBRN Task Force” set up by an agent of the intelligence service of a state committed to one side in the Syrian conflict
• Same Justice / CVDCS, a Brussels-based organization whose operations are not transparent
• the White Helmets, who would themselves be implicated if these incidents were staged

• In relation to one of the incidents from which the CBRN Task Force collected materials — the alleged chlorine barrel bomb attack in Talmenes on 21 April 2014 — the UN/OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism found clear evidence of staging at one of the two alleged locations.

• In a widely-publicized incident in Sarmin on 16 March 2015, the deaths of a family of six were allegedly caused by a chlorine barrel bomb. For this incident the alleged munition is implausible, the alleged mode of delivery is improbable, and the images of the child victims in hospital are consistent with drug overdose rather than chlorine exposure as the cause of death. Despite evidence that the incident had been staged, the Leadership Panel of the UN/OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism — Gamba, Meritani and Schanze — relied on information obtained from unspecified “other sources” to conclude that a Syrian air force helicopter had dropped a chemical weapon.

[Sophocles]

White Helmets making films of ‘chemical attacks’ with orphans in Idlib – Russian military (https://www.rt.com/news/438282-white-helmets-film-chemical-attacks/)

RT (https://www.rt.com/)
Published time: 12 Sep, 2018 13:50
Edited time: 12 Sep, 2018 15:06

https://cdni.rt.com/files/2018.09/article/5b992161dda4c82c6c8b45b1.jpg
FILE PHOTO The aftermath of what White Helmets group claims was a suspected
chemical attack in Douma, April, 7, 2018 White Helmets / Reuters

The White Helmets have shot at least nine videos intended to serve as proof in accusations that the Syrian government conducted a chemical weapon attack using chlorine against civilians in Idlib, the Russian military claims.

A number of Middle Eastern TV channels and a regional affiliate of a US broadcaster “have shot nine videos, in Jisr al-Shughur city in Idlib province, of a staged chemical attack” that will be blamed on the Syrian government, the Russian Reconciliation Center In Syria said in a statement on Wednesday.

All videos show activists from the White Helmets group, which purportedly provides assistance to civilians, the statement claims.

The Russian military details that on September 11, the White Helmets and terrorists from Tahrir al-Sham (commonly known as Al-Qaeda in Syria) held a meeting following the filming process, in which they selected two out of nine videos for future transfer to the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The remaining videos are to be used for propaganda on social media networks due to the poor quality, the military claims.

At the same time, since September 9, the White Helmets have been staging rehearsals of an alleged chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Russian officials say in the same statement, claiming that the rehearsals feature up to 30 civilians, including a dozen children aged 8-12.

Further claims by the Russian military indicate the White Helmets, along with the terrorists, are preparing an “actual use of poisonous chorine-based substances” on the people participating in the filming of the fake videos.

On-the-scene preparations of places for explosions of toxic substances is carried out by members of Hurras al-Din terrorist group (or the Guardians of Religion Organization, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda), the statement claims.

The militants have selected 22 children and their parents from several villages in the Aleppo governorate who will play parts in staging fake chemical weapon attacks.

Another group of children is comprised of orphans kidnapped from refugee camps, who are meant to be used for the footage of death scenes. It is currently kept in one of the buildings of the Ikab prison controlled by Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group.

Signs of activities to prepare staged chemical weapon attacks were reported in Kafir-Zait, the military claims, also naming two villages where toxic chemicals have been delivered to stage provocations.

Source (https://www.rt.com/news/438282-white-helmets-film-chemical-attacks/)

[shaberon]

Maybe we shouldn't say Turkey is a third side because the only dialogue is between Turkey and Russia. U. S. is really the third side here.

It works that way because of the mandates about cutting up the Ottoman Empire and leaving off Kurdistan. Now Turkey has some Kurds in its power, the U. S. has others.

It's interesting in the past few days, Mr. Bolton told the I. C. C. to buzz off and criminalized them, and then re-invigorated Syria making threats. This is the non-dialogue that nobody's not having with him.

Syria is going to turn its guns on the place and start going in, which, in western language, means dump some munitions and bump the stock market, which will be the "stronger response". Somebody's hands are going to get caught in the fire soon.

[Tintin]

When it comes to frame-ups many folk, with good cause it must be said, immediately suspect CIA/MI5-6/Mossad/ISS etc.

But (the Vatican not-withstanding, who have had a thousand years --- more if you include their previous incarnation as 'Rome') practice in the dark art of the false flag has been perfected very well of course by German Intelligence who are so very seldom ever remotely considered as possible culprits. The Gestapo were good at what they did for a reason, and, have never really ever gone away.

Here's a little piece of history that you may find interesting - note this is a translation from the original German published in 1995:

German language archive link here (http://www.spiegelgruppe-nachdrucke.de)

The thrust of the article is thus: Official German intelligence service documents admitted (original German) that, in 1994, the German intelligence services planted plutonium on an airplane coming from Russia, as a way to frame Russia for exporting dangerous radioactive materials which could end up in the hands of terrorists and criminals. This frame-up job was so successful at whipping up fear that it got German Chancellor Kohl re-elected, and the U.S. used it as an excuse to "help" secure Russia's nuclear facilities, as a way to get access to Russian nuclear secrets. (source: Zero Hedge (https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-11/911-context))

Due to the translation tool and idiosyncrasies in German to English I cannot vouch for its accuracy, but it is interesting none-the-less, and, also reads like an airport novel in places.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PANIC MADE IN PULLACH

39079

10.04.1995

The German security authorities shocked the world with a spectacular operation last August. They arrested three crooks in Munich who wanted to sell Russian plutonium - the stuff that makes up the atomic bomb. But the action "Hades" was in fact a large-scale fraud to put Moscow under pressure - staged by the Federal Intelligence Service in Pullach.

Lufthansa flight 3369 from Moscow is expected by the state. Police officers in uniform, Bavarian police officers and secret services of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) observe the landing of the aircraft at the Munich airport.

In addition to the exit hatch of the Boeing 737, which docks in module B, finger 109, of the Franz Josef Strauss airport, two detectives hide and look at the passengers. In luggage hall C, colleagues prepare for access.

Determined, the officers pick out a little dark-haired passenger and his black Delsey hard-shell case. A second man, who has picked up Colombian Justiniano Torres BenItez, 38, is arrested.

The contents of the case, confiscated on 10th August 1994, became world famous.

After three days, the news blackout had been cracked by journalists who had prosecutors and criminal police over the case."Plutonium for sale" headlined The New York Times. Bild am Sonntag calculated that "smuggled plutonium is enough to poison drinking water throughout Germany."

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote of a _ (* August 15, 1994, left:) _ (Metallkoffer der Fahnder mit) _ (Strahlmeßgerät.) "Apocalyptic nightmare". The Menetekel Nuclear Terrorism has been the subject of symposia and congresses around the globe.

The SPIEGEL (34/1994), the new weapons of blackmailers were worth a cover story.
Torres and his sidekick, the 49-year-old Spaniard Julio Oroz Eguia, were moved by their fears.

Plutonium, the most toxic of all substances that human ingenuity ever created, was suddenly in the everyday world - no longer sealed off behind high fences somewhere in laboratories or reactors.

The Spanish-speaking crooks had brought the bomb material from the collapsed Soviet empire and now wanted to earn big money in the West.

It was exactly this scenario that scared people, especially in Germany, since plutonium had been found in a tiny garage in May in a Baden garage.

Now, a gangster trio - the third man arrested at a Munich hotel - attempted to sack 363.4 grams of weapon-grade plutonium and 201 grams of lithium-6 metal - an important element in the most devastating of weapons, the hydrogen bomb.

Never before had there been such dangerous nuclear smuggling. The arrest in Munich triggered red alert worldwide.

Governments from Washington to Tokyo regularly covered the case. Cases like these signaled what was "the biggest long-term threat to United States security," said FBI director Louis Freeh.

With much public applause, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl wrote a letter to his Russian friend Boris Yeltsin, but please make sure that "no fissile material circumnavigates the world". To put the energy of the government in the right light a few weeks before the election, Kohl then sent his Minister of State Bernd Schmidbauer to Moscow. German sense of order, that was the message, had to show the way for the Russians, who had no control over their chaotic country.

In a newspaper interview Paul Münstermann, one of the highest German intelligence men, burst with pride: The arrest in Munich, the former vice president of the Federal Intelligence Service said, was the "result of systematic planning and intelligence methodology".

Probably true.

39080

The story of the world's largest plutonium smuggling to date is a clever staging of the Federal Intelligence Service, the bomb history a bomb fraud, one of the most adventurous actions, the German intelligence has instigated in his nearly 40 years of service.

Comparable it is not even with the Bubenstück, the intelligence agency and the anti-terrorist group GSG 9 staged in July 1978: With an explosive attack on the high security wing of the prison Celle I, the authorities wanted to then inject a V-man in the terror scene.

Tarn term for the plutonium action of the Federal Intelligence Service was "Operation Hades" - in Greek mythology the god of the underworld. The aim of "Hades" was to prove that the new sinister danger from the East actually exists.

To show the world how porous the nuclear arsenals of the former Soviet empire are, the BND staged a massive bluff, with all the ingredients of a thriller - windy, greedy agents, ambitious eavesdropped bosses, big and small gangsters and crooks ,

The action takes place between Madrid and Moscow, the showdown in front of the Pullacher front door in Munich.Dealings were made at $ 276 million, at least on paper.

To this day, the gangster plays in front of the public as a simple criminal case: From May 10, the trio of plutonium smugglers in front of the 9th Grand Criminal Court of the Munich district court because of various violations of the War Weapons Control Act. Torres and his accomplices face up to ten years imprisonment.

The BND does not appear in the indictment, not even in the witness list.But the inventors of the foolhardy story have documented their coup exactly - from the placement of a BND-decoy in the pusher scene in Madrid to the sales pitches between the V-people of the service "Rafa" and "Roberto" and the plutonium dealers.

The files containing the notes of intercepted telephone conversations, with surveillance reports and verbal records of meetings between BND spies and atom dealers, in which secretaries always had a microphone, are stored by the BND and its helpers.

Anyone who knew everything about the responsibility of the Republic of the dangerous enterprise on the verge of legality, who approved and covered it (* on 22 August 1994 with the Russian) _ (intelligence chief Sergei Stepashin.) Remained unclear. It is hard to believe that at least the right-hand intelligence agency of Helmut Kohl, Minister of State Bernd Schmidbauer, was privy to the action - and approved it.

The minister to SPIEGEL: "I do not know the operational details."

In retrospect, the staged plutonium smuggling is no longer appealing to some BND superiors. Rightly they fear a scandal when the whole story comes to the public. According to a confidential report from Pullach, the "media" could construct the "accusation of incitement", which would "sustainably harm the outcome of the process and all the authorities or persons involved".

Only at the non-sectoral president of the service, Konrad Porzner, a former financial expert of the SPD, the play was apparently over. Irritated, after everything had gone, he asked his home to ask if BND people had acted as agent provocateurs.
He also wanted to know if "the plutonium deliveries were pushed" and the providers had been "lured to Munich". His people calmed him down: "A clear no," Mr President.

In the plutonium affair, the dividing lines between scoundrels and men of honor at the BND have blurred beyond recognition. When a BND man was worried that the transport of plutonium by air was not too dangerous, what happens when the plane crashes, BND spy Rafa snapped at him in disdain: "I can not handle it."

"Operation Hades" was the work of a post-conversion unit at the BND to deal with post-communist agent subjects such as money laundering and drug trafficking. The resident in house 109 troop with the abbreviation 11A trusts even in Pullach some not on the way.

Since the Federal Intelligence Service with the Eastern Bloc and its enemy images have largely been lost, seeks the Pullacher service with its total of 6300 evaluators, spies and spies for reasons for further raison d'être.

Departments compete with each other, everyone distrusts everyone. That the large-scale plutonium bluff is coming out now has to do with these internal survival issues.

In recent months, an unknown person has reported to the Munich defense lawyer Werner Leitner, who represents the inmate Torres. "Brutal," said the anonymus, was the case "pushed" by colleagues. The comrades wanted to "harvest laurels, they cooked their own soup".

The mole from Pullach gave the advice to investigate in Spain. "There you go."

In the German embassy of the Spanish capital has actually started the story that later shocked people across the globe in terror.

Head of the BND Residentur in Madrid is Dr. med. Peter Fischer-Hollweg, code name "Eckerlin", a block of man with polished manners. In the embassy Fischer-Hollweg officially leads the Political Department 2. "Pedro, el Gordo", Peter, the Dicken, call him the Spaniards.

El Gordo is not one of those petty bourgeois frequently found in secret services who only write after the newspapers of the country. Fischer-Hollweg is of a different caliber: he organizes intelligence campaigns and conducts a network of agents in Spain. The BND resident hires V-people, and he does not pay badly. 5000 marks a month plus a success bonus are easy for the freelancers.

El Gordo's stars were "Rafa" and "Roberto". Roberto is actually called Peter.The former German V-man came to Spain decades ago because life is not so difficult there. He runs a small plantation, lives in a picturesque finca. He worked full-time for the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and foreign services, in the old milieu, the drug scene. At some point, the BND also recruited him, not the fine kind among security people, but Pullach stands out with massive bonuses the competition, even the German.

Roberto's buddy Rafa, 41, has always lived a wild life. At the age of 18 he was with the Guardia Civil, later with the military intelligence service, then an investigator in the drug trade. The almost 167 centimeters large powerhouse also bears the code name "Lolita".

Actually, Rafa is taboo for the BND. He belongs to the so-called active reserve of the Spanish police - even more questionable, because the BND is allowed to recruit in friendly countries, no security forces. If Rafas work becomes public for the BND, it is in Rafas Pullacher file, that could become the "scandal case for the German-Spanish relations".

The two V-people like to work for the BND. The service pays well. There is a lot of money if the scoop does not run abroad but in Germany.

Rafa and his buddy Roberto met in the Madrid milieu people who had contacts in the broken Soviet Union. In their deals, they claimed, Russian war weapons played a major role.

In the crooks' round a secretive German led the big word at a meeting in May last year. He had no interest in a range of combat helicopters or a pinch of osmium. He asked for plutonium and plutonium again and again - that was "a very strong product". Some of the listeners, however, could not do anything with the term. But everyone noticed that Rafa brought the Germans again and again on the stuff.

About ten days later, at the beginning of June 1994, another meeting with the German dark man took place in the foyer of the Madrid "Novotel". The meeting _ (* with the Bavarian Minister of the Interior) _ (Günther Beckstein (2nd from right), 15th) (August 1994.) lasted only a few minutes.The German wanted to have a sample of plutonium, and the material was to be delivered to Munich - "only Munich" would be an option. "Why?" one asked. "There I have a lab."

The course of the Madrid farce is typical of such intelligence operations: One, in this case the spy Rafa, makes the ripper, his accomplice mimics the man of money. Someone is looking for plutonium and wants to pay any price. That makes the rounds in the scene. Skillfully, V-man Rafa pointed the direction where the bomb material would be: "If you are unable, I will go to Russia myself to handle things."

The shoot worked. Word had got around between Madrid and Moscow that a German was seriously interested in plutonium. The material should definitely be made to Munich. The suppliers in Moscow bit into it.

On July 11th of last year Oroz and Torres appeared in the Bavarian capital.The two had met in the Nicaraguan Embassy in Moscow. They lived on occasional business: fertilizer, cement, salted cow skins, sometimes helicopters.

Oroz had told the Colombian that somebody in Spain was looking "wildly" for plutonium. Torres was interested. He knew many important people in Moscow. They were helpful now (see box). One with the common name Konstantin brought him a sample. Three grams of plutonium 239 only, but at least.

Oroz and Torres took the train from Moscow via Berlin to Munich. A caller from Spain had ordered her to the Bavarian capital. "Here and only here" could run the business. They hid the fabric in a hole in the wagon. At the Hotel Altano in Arnulfstraße 12, room 705, they were waiting for the buyer.In Madrid, Rafa is informed of her arrival and alerts the local BND chief.

While the two are waiting in the hotel with their plutonium sample, the responsible BND department head Rudolf Werner and his head of department, Duzfreund Jürgen Merker, are hesitant in Munich. There are scruples in the upper ranks of the secret service. Should one carry out the risky operation?

The head of the BND Residentur in Madrid hastily sends a warning letter to Pullach. If his V-man Rafa does not get an okay for the mission, "the two dealers would leave the territory of the Federal Republic on July 20". In addition, Fischer-Hollweg demands a decent fee for the V-man. At least now Minister Schmidbauer may have been involved in the case. As a precaution, the BND asked him how much money such evidence of nuclear smuggling was worth.

Finally, the BND decides to risk the play. Rafa will arrive on July 22nd. His wife is with the party, a couple is less noticeable.

The Spaniard is to act as a middleman between the suppliers and the BND. Pullach has meanwhile turned on the Bavarian State Office for Criminal Investigation, the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office too, because the BND (police officer at the police station) has no police powers. The police have to arrest.

The prosecutors are uncertain. They do not know the history of Madrid.Attorney General Helmut Meier-Staude suspects that the case could be complicated. When an intelligence agency sets the pace, other rules apply.

July 22, 8 pm, a Friday. In the Hotel Excelsior, first of all, the suppliers from Moscow and Rafa get to know each other. Casually, Rafa drops that he's brought $ 400,000 before.

If he could get four kilograms, he asks Torres. He answers grandly: "No problem." The material was still in Moscow, perhaps in Siberia. He did bring along a sample.

They retreat to Rafas hotel room. Torres shows a metal case about five centimeters long.

It is closed with a stopper. "I do not understand anything about it," Rafa says and wants to touch the powder. Oroz mimics the connoisseur: "If some of it gets stuck on your fingernails, it can be over with you."

"What do you want to do with that stuff?" Torres asks. "We want to scare the rulers in one country," explains Rafa. The right buyers would come.They brought along a chemist behind whom the police were after. "An ace."

Three days later, the long-awaited buyer appears. Walter Boeden, an impeccable appearance, plays the rich merchant from Munich. In fact, Boeden is a "noeP", a non-openly investigating police officer.

Boeden got the order from the LKA in the morning. In the evening he is already well prepared, knows about with plutonium isotopes and dangerous radiation.
Technicians of the LKA have equipped it with a small micro.

All conversations are recorded secretly. An idea of the prosecutor. She wants to hear the negotiations in the wording.

The dialogues will be documented later. Minute by minute - "eavesdropping" is written on the papers.

July 25, 19:20. Torres relates that there are at least four different qualities of plutonium - "38", "39", "41", "45" - Boeden says: "I'm only interested in 39." He prefers plutonium 239 with an enrichment of "95 or 96 percent".

That's the best bomb substance.

The BND, who has threaded the operation, sits at the table. The interpreter Adrian, who translates and co-negotiates the German-Spanish expert discussion between Boeden and the plutonium suppliers from Moscow, works for the Pullacher secret service, department 11A.

Torres explains that he can get supplies through Moscow. "We have two kilos in one factory, two kilos in another." For the bomb it needs at least three kilos, with good quality.

Boeden gets a radiation meter from his car, asks for the sample and takes it to the lab. "We talk about money later."

The next day, at 3:19 pm, they meet in the lobby of the Kempinski Hotel.Boeden sips his cappuccino and says to Adrian: "I was in the lab before, but that looks very, very good."

The man from the State Criminal Police Office has had the Moscow sample examined at the Institute of Radiochemistry in Garching near Munich.Result: Plutonium 239, enriched to 87.7 percent, weapon capable.

Torres wants money for the rehearsal, but Boeden is stubborn: "Basically, I do not pay for the rehearsals, it's not common in this business, I've got so many rehearsals, and then, besides this rehearsal, nothing has ever happened have used this money. "

Torres replies: "The stuff" is in a factory. He had to get it. "It has its price, you have to pay it."

"If you want," he says to Boeden, "we'll go to Moscow and I'll give it to you there ... it's all ready - there are eleven kilos."

Oroz interferes. He called the factory and explained the "demand". "So they say: yes." But the security service of Russia wanted to collect as well."The solution is in Russia," confirms Rafa, the BND's representative.

In the evening, Boeden brings along two oblong envelopes. 5000 marks and 2000 marks. Expenses.

The story should continue.

Neither the BND nor the head of the Land criminal police care that the action "Hades" violates a few principles formulated by the working group "Internal Security" of the Interior Ministers for the fight against nuclear crime and to which all German police have agreed ,

"The use of covert investigators," it says, "is also to be judged and balanced under the aspect of artificial market procurement." And: "Test purchases must not lead to the fact that foreign material is brought to Germany."

The Munich operation is so rude that a dispute has broken out between BKA and BND. The BKA also knew about the plutonium offer from Moscow.The competent criminal director in Wiesbaden but prohibited his Madrid V-man Roberto to bring the substance into the country. The BND was less scrupulous.

It went against the old enemy: Tatort Moscow provided virtually bundled all favorite conspiracies of the nostalgics on duty. A sinister super-plot of new mafia and old KGB.

The look behind the scenes of the secrets reveals, almost incidentally, an interesting detail: banks are indispensable in such transactions.

Kaufmann Boeden uses a variety of jobs for the state criminal police of a Munich address: The Bavarian mortgage and exchange bank with its headquarters on the Munich Theatinerstraße 11 is Germany's sixth largest bank.

The money house equipped the merchant Boeden - with alleged company headquarters in the Fritz Meyer way 55, Munich - with loan commitments, as if he were an extremely solvent customer.

For narcotics business, which also used to run on behalf of the LKA Boeden, he had $ 2.5 million available. It was written on a genuine sheet of the Hypo-Bank that the money was "ready for disbursement".

More money was needed in the negotiations with the plutonium suppliers.First, Hypo Bank issued a bank confirmation of $ 122 million. That was not enough. In a small pub in Munich opposite the Hotel Excelsior, Boeden and the plutonium procurers finally agreed on $ 276 million for four kilograms of plutonium 239 - at least 435 million marks after the dollar at the time.

There is still a bizarre dialogue. "Can we get it in cash?" Oroz asked.Translator Adrian, the BND man, said, "$ 276 million in bills, that's a bit too much stuff."
For Boeden and his bankers of the Hypo, the insanity amount meant no problem: "Dear Mr. Boeden," wrote the financial institution, "taking into account your wealth and your excellent reputation, we are willing, willing and able to make payments for your business transactions to guarantee $ 276 million. "

Anyone who asks Hypo whether the businessman Walter Boeden is known there encounters silence. The man to whom the bank would give $ 276 million is reportedly unknown to the bankers. "These letters can not be real," said a spokesman last week. "Forgery, fiction, work".

Only with the third demand the Hypo people fold in: The 276-million-dollar-free-charter had been a "secret action", only a "inner circle" admits.

When Hypo-Bank issued a certificate to merchant Boeden, Torres was already back in Moscow to get the plutonium. Oroz immediately faxed the bank confirmation to Moscow and called his buddy Torres: "The 276 are here ... I was on the bench yesterday." Torres triumphantly: "Now the gates will open."

Every maneuver of the dealers was monitored by the security forces.Boeden always had a microphone in his pocket, interception specialists recorded every phone call between Oroz and Torres and the liaison people in Moscow.

The date of the return of the Colombian with the deadly substance was no secret: Torres had booked with Lufthansa. At 10.18 pm on August 10th, he left Moscow for Oroz: "I'm boarding the plane now." In a black case, he leads the first delivery with 363.4 grams of plutonium 239.

The rest was routine: the arrest of plutonium dealers at Munich Airport revealed to the world: The new nuclear threat from the East is not fiction.Into the vacuum left by the International, the International of the Nuclear Terrorists can come soon. The Russians stood in the pillory.

In Bonn and Munich, the Nebelwerfer were put into position. It was necessary to cover history with a thick veil of secrecy. First of all, all participants had to brace themselves against the question of why they had allowed highly toxic plutonium to be brought to Germany by plane. The Munich Chief Public Prosecutor Dieter Emrich stated: "It was not clear whether the material had already roamed around in the Federal Republic."

Chancellor Helmut Schmidbauer even claimed in a special session of the Foreign Affairs Committee that it was not known that plutonium should be flown aboard a Lufthansa plane.

All smoke: The Bavarian LKA had built Torres reception two radiation stations at the airport. As a precaution, airport personnel and police were later investigated for nuclear contamination. After all, the authorities had no experience with the importation of such quality beaming.

When the parliamentary managing director of the SPD parliamentary group, Peter Struck, at that time expressed the vague suspicion that the BND had fingered the action and his party chairman Rudolf Scharping of "staging" spoke, Minister Schmidbauer excited media attention: "Absurd, monstrous, pure polemics". In no case, he insisted, did V-men act as plutonium purchasers.

Had a very sensitive major intelligence operation run past its supreme overseer? Schmidbauer told SPIEGEL last August: "I put my hand in the fire that the BND did not act as a buyer of illegal nuclear material, which I have forbidden the service to do."

Currently, Schmidbauer and his BND are busy disposing of the affair finally.The Pullacher had trouble with their V-husband Rafa for months. The Spaniard demanded 300,000 marks - they had been promised, he says.

From Madrid he got support from El Gordo: "Since the state elections in Bavaria" had meanwhile taken place, it could no longer be a problem, "to process the operation Hades also financially".

Rafa had entered into financial commitments in reliance on the promised premium. After a long haggling, the service paid him nearly 100,000 marks.

The state of Bavaria is still to pay for the operation. Another six-figure sum is in question. The Munich LKA let the BND know, a disbursement could take place only after conclusion of the process against Torres and the others. Rafa should not have a loss. The premium could, as a kind of compensation, be paid "retroactively from the date of the arrest".

The agitation around Rafa irritated the Munich prosecutor. The prosecutors threatened to call the V-man for a search if he did not appear for a hearing in the case of Torres and Oroz. He came, accompanied by an intelligence officer.
Aftershocks of the affair are still felt elsewhere. Prior to the visit of the Spanish military intelligence chief lieutenant general Emilio Alonso Manglano at the BND issued an "urgent warning" from the house, "remarks on Operation Hades" should be removed from a file prepared for Manglano.

The BND Warner: "There is not the slightest indication" that the Lieutenant General "knows details of this operation". One should not "wake sleeping dogs".
But the Spaniards are already wide awake. "What happened in the case of Oroz and others", in February a Spanish intelligence officer in Madrid revolted against SPIEGEL, "was an unfriendly act".

But Madrid has avenged. BND Resident Eckerlin recently informed the center that both the telephone connections of the Residentur in the German embassy and the private connections of the BNDler in Madrid would be intercepted by the Spanish National Police. The Bonn intelligence service coordinator Schmidbauer has nevertheless asked Manglano for support in the global fight against nuclear smuggling.

Otherwise, Schmidbauer has nothing to complain about the plutonium thing, on the contrary: that was a "political success." This has brought us the cooperation with the Russians, "he now told the SPIEGEL.

What the Minister is not talking about: "Operation Hades" has caused political damage to the ground. While Bonn and Munich praised the security forces, the Russians felt led. "It's trying," scolded Russian security specialist Vladimir Klimenko, "to rebuild the Berlin Wall." "The thing stinks," complained an ex-KGB general already last fall at SPIEGEL.

Why, Moscow asked, does nuclear material actually appear in Germany in particular? Former BND leader Klaus Kinkel hastened to announce that "similar problems exist in France, Switzerland and other European countries".

So far, however, only the Germans have tried with the bait almost half a billion marks to push the nuclear black market.

"Operation Hades" proves that the secret services are still running parliamentary checks and policies that are not afraid to stir up fear and panic if necessary.

The BND staff involved in the operation were commended: "Formal recognition" is on the certificate; she wears the coat of arms of the Federal Intelligence Service - St. George, how he conquers the dragon. Y

Cases registered by the BND d. worldwide nuclear smuggling

* On August 15, 1994; left: Metal case of the investigators with radiation meter. * On August 22, 1994 with the Russian intelligence chief Sergei Stepashin. * With the Bavarian Minister of the Interior Günther Beckstein (2nd from right), on 15 August 1994. * Police officer at the crime scene.
THE MIRROR 15/1995
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