Syria Presents New Evidence Armed Groups behind Chemical Attack, Former Pentagon Official: Al-Nusra May Have Sarin

Local Editor

The Syrian regime handed Russia new materials implicating armed groups in a chemical attack outside Damascus on August 21, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said after talks in Damascus.

"The corresponding materials were handed to the Russian side. We were told that they were evidence that the rebels are implicated in the chemical attack," Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies after talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.
Ryabkov also said Russia was disappointed with a UN report into the chemical weapons attack, saying it was selective and had ignored other episodes.
"Without a full picture... we cannot describe the character of the conclusions as anything other than politicized, biased and one-sided," he said.

The Syrian government insists the attack was carried out by armed groups. The UN report mentions the Ghouta areas of Ein Tarma, Moadamiyeh and Zamalka, all of which were featured in videos of victims that emerged after the attack.
"Based on the orientation of the impact craters, orientation of certain surviving munition components and other damage in the areas, the rockets are believed to have arrived from the northwest," said the report.

In this context, the former Pentagon official ,Michael Maloof, revealed that a source, who has direct connections with classified information and he basically told him that [the] US military did an assessment based upon 50 indicators and clandestine interviews that the sourcing of sarin originated out of Iraq and into Turkey before some of it was confiscated in May in Turkey.

He believed that since that report was disseminated in August in 2013, that there has actually been a more significant amount of sarin production both in Iraq and in Turkey going to the opposition, principally al-Qaeda and al-Nusra.

"A document itself was published in August 2013 by the National Ground Intelligence Center . It's part of the intelligence community. The fact that some of it was actually captured in May along the border in Turkey and it was actually al-Qaeda, and since it was disseminated my sources are telling me that production has probably increased significantly and sarin gas is being produced quite widely now. That it's actually ongoing and there's actually a Saudi financier whose name I'm trying to obtain right now."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team