If this is true, it was no accident as alleged. Saudi Arabia wanted these deaths to occur so as to pressure the US to enter the war.
So far this report has not been corroborated. Ted Belman
Militants tell AP reporter they mishandled Saudi-supplied chemical weapons, causing accident
Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars.com
Syrian rebels in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta have admitted to Associated Press correspondent Dale Gavlak that they were responsible for last week’s chemical weapons incident which western powers have blamed on Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, revealing that the casualties were the result of an accident caused by rebels mishandling chemical weapons provided to them by Saudi Arabia.
“From numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families….many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the (deadly) gas attack,” writes Gavlak. (back up version here).
Rebels told Gavlak that they were not properly trained on how to handle the chemical weapons or even told what they were. It appears as though the weapons were initially supposed to be given to the Al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra.
“We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” one militant named ‘J’ told Gavlak.
His claims are echoed by another female fighter named ‘K’, who told Gavlak, “They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them. We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”
Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of an opposition rebel, also told Gavlak, “My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” describing them as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.” The father names the Saudi militant who provided the weapons as Abu Ayesha.
According to Abdel-Moneim, the weapons exploded inside a tunnel, killing 12 rebels.
“More than a dozen rebels interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government,” writes Gavlak.
If accurate, this story could completely derail the United States’ rush to attack Syria which has been founded on the “undeniable” justification that Assad was behind the chemical weapons attack. Dale Gavlak’s credibility is very impressive. He has been a Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press for two decades and has also worked for National Public Radio (NPR) and written articles for BBC News.
The website on which the story originally appeared – Mint Press (which is currently down as a result of huge traffic it is attracting to the article) is a legitimate media organization based in Minnesota. The Minnesota Post did a profile on them last year.
Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in providing rebels, whom they have vehemently backed at every turn, with chemical weapons, is no surprise given the revelations earlier this week that the Saudis threatened Russia with terror attacks at next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi unless they abandoned support for the Syrian President.
“I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” Prince Bandar allegedly told Vladimir Putin, the Telegraph reports.
The Obama administration is set to present its intelligence findings today in an effort prove that Assad’s forces were behind last week’s attack, despite American officials admitting to the New York Times that there is no “smoking gun” that directly links President Assad to the attack.
US intelligence officials also told the Associated Press that the intelligence proving Assad’s culpability is “no slam dunk.”
As we reported earlier this week, intercepted intelligence revealed that the Syrian Defense Ministry was making “panicked” phone calls to Syria’s chemical weapons department demanding answers in the hours after the attack, suggesting that it was not ordered by Assad’s forces.
UPDATE: Associated Press contacted us to confirm that Dave Gavlak is an AP correspondent, but that her story was not published under the banner of the Associated Press. We didn’t claim this was the case, we merely pointed to Gavlak’s credentials to stress that she is a credible source, being not only an AP correspondent, but also having written for PBS, BBC and Salon.com.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
@ yamit82:
Shouldn’t you be at your prayers.????????????Shama!!!!!!!!!!!
honeybee Said:
Why sad ,I was not the one scorned? 😉
yamit82 Said:
Speaking from sad experience,Sugar pie???????????????
@ yamit82:
Honest of you to admit you’re one of the fruitcakes who glommed onto Rav Kahane. Maybe you were around him, but it’s clear you never really knew him.
In other discussion threads over the past few years I’ve seen how you deploy gradeschool sophistry and are quick to make disparaging and abusive remarks to those who challenge you. Do you have a Ph.D. from Ben Gurion? If not, you could quickly acquire one there.
I don’t believe you’re really interested in knowing anything about my thoughts and the sources of my views (developed over the past 30+ years) but will provide a few references for others who’re capable of civilized, mature discussion and might chance upon this discussion thread:
http://shmuelkatz.com/
http://www.malchut-israel.com/index.html
http://archive.org/details/RabbiMeirKahane
http://mythsandfacts.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF4_hM8kbfc
http://www.israelbehindthenews.com/
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/eidelba.htm
http://www.alargerisrael.com/Home.html
WB Said:
So make some arguments based on facts.
Depends on your arguments but it could. Opposition to what? What is the basis of your opposition?
WB Said:
Liar, name a single instance where Laura denigrated Kahane?
btw Kahane was not right about everything at least in the Time frame he predicted.
He was also wrong about civil war. Jew fighting Jew.
He was wrong to exploit too young under age kids for his own aggrandizement.
Unlike you I knew him personally and he was no saint.
He attracted a lot of fruitcakes and the mentally unstable but did nothing to distance himself and his organization from them.
Sounds like Carry Chamish but you are defending Drudge,Jones and others similar and bashing debbie schlussel? You are not a conspiracy nut? Sure, Right? 😉
All conspircy fruitcakes have some facts correct otherwise they would never attract a following. Even you seem to have gotten some things right but only somethings. Still no prize due you for credibility.
Laura is always consistent and is usually correct in her comments.
So out with it what’s with you and Laura. You are acting like the classic woman scorned? 😛
yamit82 Said:
Her brains went all to curls, but those cream filled sweet cakes of hers, unbelievably good.
WB Said:
She isn’t any of those things but you are a certified AH.
Laura is right.
your clock is so broken it has no hands.
WB Said:
Like Iran, Hezbollah, Russia and China? Huh?
Laura Said:
Little Debbie is hardly a credible source. She’s stopped-clock-correct about some things. But mostly she’s a vain and hypocritical egotist.
If you can produce something that Drudge has written and said to support your wild claims about him, you might convince me. Otherwise, I don’t believe your premise can be substantiated. Drudge is very conservative and in the past has been one of the few who dared to challenge the Establishment. Right now, there’s a big effort to get people to stop reading his website. That’s because he’s having a big impact on the professional liars who’re pushing an anti-Liberty agenda.
Now you can get back to your rat-killing. Have a nice day.
Laura Said:
Laura: I’ve been reading Ted’s comments and following IsraPundit since it first appeared on the Internet. The fact that your response is an insult reveals your low level of intelligence. You’re clever and full of opinions but no different from the Marxist dissemblers. You might consider expanding your information base, but I’m sure you believe yourself above the need to think objectively and present arguments based on facts.
I made Aliyah almost 10 years ago. For many years before making Aliyah, I was active in pro-Israel hasbara and a proponent of Rabbi Kahane’s work. I adhere to Kahane because I spent years reading and carefully analyzing what he had to say. To my dismay, I discovered that the Jewish Establishment and people like you do everything they can to denigrate Rav Kahane and prevent others from knowing much about his thoughts. Everything he predicted has turned out to be correct.
I’m in almost total opposition to the policies and practices of the Israeli government. I’m Jewish by birth and observant by choice. Does my opposition to Israeli political and social policy make me an antisemite?
I’ve studied Rabbi Marvin Antelman’s “To Eliminate The Opiate” and think he’s correct when he says that the Sabbatean-Frankist cult is the real problem. They’ve perverted Torah and infiltrated almost all Jewish institutions. The only ones who’ve remained true to Torah are the Kahanists. The historical facts support Antelman and Kahane. But I suspect that now you’re going to hurl the typical canard of the dissembler and call me a ‘conspiracy theorist’… another trope that effectively eliminates genuine thinking and analysis.
I don’t support Jones’ perspective on Israel, but he’s correct about many things. Our government is led by Sabbatean-Frankists who’re controlled by the American-Saudi cabal. We’re not a sovereign nation. Our resources are used to further the interests of the Saudis and Americans, at the expense of our own people.
I’ll let you get back to pulling the wings off flies and setting cats afire.
@ WB:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/37315/matt-drudge-v-israel-hypocrite-on-border-patrol-k9s/
@ WB:
It’s not irresponsible, he is most definitely an anti-Semite. His anti-Israel articles prove that. Misinformed about Israel, my foot. Alex jones is a vicious antisemite. Just like the anti-Israel left saying they are not anti-Semitic, only anti-Zionist, as if there’s a difference. You appear to be a new commenter here and I’m wondering if you are really a supporter of Israel.
Laura Said:
Please provide some type of proof to support your claim. How, specifically, is Drudge anti-Israel?
I once looked forward to receiving Ted Belman’s reports and comments. More and more I see him as a sock puppet for that element in Israeli society that calls itself “pragmatic” but are, in fact, just expedient carpetbaggers. Carpetbaggery is the norm here. Who foots the bill for all this? Belman has convinced me that there are no objective voices working to change public opinion or to change the laws that hamper our sovereignty. People should stop believing what they read in the papers and hear on the radio. It’s 99 & 44/100th percent lies and distortions.
Eric R. Said:
This forum once had intelligent and informed discussions with people who didn’t have their heads up their behinds. Now, it is dominated by sophomoric dissemblers. I don’t know why Ted Belman allows this to continue. He was once a credible source but seems to have become little more than an apologists for the “Right Wing” cartel in Israel that distracts the public with strong patriotic rhetoric but ends up doing what the Marxist oligarchy dictates.
After reading comments here, one is left with the impression that Israel is dominated by sarcastic, babbling idiots. People who get their jollies from pulling the wings off flies.
Laura Said:
Jones and his crew are definitely misinformed about Israel, and they follow a political agenda regarding what Israel should and shouldn’t do that’s not much different from Shimon Peres and many others. But it’s irresponsible to say that Jones is an antisemite. This form of rhetoric is no different from the Leftists who use the ‘racist’ canard to stop any serious discussion.
The Jihadis themselves are bragging about what they did and have been doing with the training, logistical support, and weapons supplied by the US (mainly through the CIA).
How is InfoWars any less credible than mainstream media?
What we’re seeing with the spokesmen and apologists for the Establishment in Israel clamoring for war against Assad is a kind of blind fanaticism that ignores most of the facts and uses trite phrases and insults to keep people from thinking. Removing Assad from power will only strengthen the forces that are determined to destroy us.
@ Eric R.:
Drudge himself is anti-Israel.
Infowars is not considered reliable, although Drudge (who is Jewish himself) has referenced it with increasing frequency. And Alex Jones’ problem is not that he is anti-Semitic himself, but like Ron Paul (and many Infowars readers are Paulbots), the righty anti-Semites seem to flock to him and he does not do much to disown them.
Although I believe its certainly possible the jihadist “rebels” are responsible for the attack, infowars is NOT a reliable source. This is antisemite alex jones site. I’m surprised the article didn’t accuse Israel of launching the attack to get America to go to war.