Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by Grizzly » Fri Jun 16, 2017 2:42 pm
Unread postby kool maudit » Fri Jun 16, 2017 7:27 am
I encourage all RI readers, in line with Jeff's wishes, to avoid siding with Russia's slaying of local community leader Ibrahim abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and instead evolve towards an advanced leftist praxis wherein we basically agree with the fucking New York Times but more poststructural.
kool maudit
by seemslikeadream » Sat Jun 17, 2017 5:31 pm
Money stolen by Russian mob linked to man sanctioned for supporting Syria's chemical weapons program
By Michael Weiss, CNN Investigates
Updated 7:50 PM ET, Fri June 16, 2017
An investment group that U.S. authorities say is run by Russian mobsters and linked to the Russian government sent at least $900,000 to a company owned by a businessman tied to Syria's chemical weapons program, according to financial documents obtained by CNN.
According to a contract and bank records from late 2007 and early 2008, a company tied to a state-backed Russian mafia group, according to U.S. officials, agreed to pay more than $3 million to a company called Balec Trading Ventures, Ltd — supposedly for high-end "furniture."
Wire transaction records seen by CNN confirm that at least $900,000 was transferred.
Both businesses are registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The company allegedly tied to Russian mafia was called Quartell Trading Ltd., and the U.S. Department of Justice claims it is one of the many vehicles into which millions of dollars of stolen Russian taxpayer money was laundered a decade ago in connection with the so-called "Magnitsky affair," perhaps the most notorious corruption case in Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Balec Ventures is owned by Issa al-Zeydi, a Russian whom the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned in 2014 for his connection to the Scientific Studies and Research Center, the hub of Syria's nonconventional weapons program, including its manufacture of Sarin and VX nerve agents and mustard gas.
The $230 million tax fraud
According to U.S. Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, a band of Russian mafia called the Klyuev Group consists of past and present officials in the Russian Interior Ministry, two Moscow tax bureaus and the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the domestic intelligence service and successor body to the Soviet KGB.
In 2007, authorities say, the Klyuev Group, colluded to fraudulently seize the ownership of three subsidiary companies connected to a Moscow-based Hermitage Capital Management, then the largest hedge fund in Russia.
The Klyuev Group then fabricated hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for these companies that they had taken over. That enabled them to apply for a tax refund of $230 million.
The entire amount was processed in a single day, Christmas Eve 2007, by Russian tax officials on the Klyuev payroll.
Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer hired by Hermitage Capital to investigate the theft, uncovered this vast criminal conspiracy and the players behind it. He was arrested in 2008, denied urgent medical care for over a year in pretrial detention and physically tortured before his death in Moscow prison in 2009 at age 37.
In 2012, Congress passed the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, under which some three dozen Russian officials have been sanctioned.
The Kremlin rejects the U.S. version of events. Moscow insists that the lawyer died of "heart failure" and that he was the real tax cheat. A Russian court even put him on trial posthumously and found him guilty in 2013. It marked the first time in Russian history that a corpse was successfully prosecuted.
Follow the money — and dead bodies
Much of the $230 million from the Klyuev Group heist has since been located and frozen in jurisdictions all over the world. "Magnitsky stumbled into more than he realized, and more than we realized even after the passage of the Magnitsky Act," Daniel Fried, the former U.S. Coordinator for Sanctions Policy, told CNN.
The U.S. Attorney in New York charged Prevezon Holdings, a Cyprus-registered company owned by the son of an influential Russian official, with having purchased Manhattan real estate and opened U.S. bank accounts using some of the pilfered funds. That case was settled in May. In the settlement, Prevezon did not acknowledge any wrongdoing and the U.S. government agreed not to pursue the company in any further litigation tied to this case.
Another related asset forfeiture case is still ongoing in Switzerland where authorities have relied on evidence turned over by Alexander Perepilichny, a Russian expatriate who confessed to having been the principal money launderer for the Klyuev Group before he broke ties with it.
The evidence showed Credit Suisse bank accounts in Switzerland where some of the stolen money had been deposited. One of those Swiss accounts belonged to Quartell Trading, which is Perepilichny's company — or was before he dropped dead suddenly while jogging near his home in Surrey in November 2012.
At only 44 years-old and not known to have been in ill health, Perepilichny's death was initially declared "unexplained" by British police until traces of gelsemium, a poisonous flower, were discovered in his stomach.
A state coroner's inquest into the case began in Britain on June 5 and was upended when BuzzFeed reported a week later that the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the body that oversees all U.S. spy agencies, concluded with "high confidence" that Perepilichnyy was killed on orders by Vladimir Putin.
Citing more than a dozen past and present intelligence officials in the U.S., UK and France, BuzzFeed alleged that the British government was suppressing crucial evidence. BuzzFeed said that the British government refused to comment on the report.
More recently, in late March 2016, a lawyer for Magnitsky's family nearly died when he fell from the fourth floor of his apartment building, a day before he was due to submit new evidence to a Moscow court.
A dubious transaction
A signed contract dated December 18, 2007 — just days before the Klyuev Group's fraudulent $230 million refund was processed — show that Perepilichny's Quartell Trading agreed to buy $3,172,000 worth of high-end "furniture" from Balec Ventures, Issa al-Zeydi's company.
A copy of a SWIFT transaction also obtained by CNN show that $900,000 of that amount was wired from Quartell Trading to Balec a few weeks later, on January 25, 2008.
It is unclear whether any of the vaguely described items was ever delivered to the listed address, a warehouse in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Balec's bank, the Federal Bank of the Middle East (FBME), approved the transaction for filing five days later, on January 30, 2008. Notably, the bank also stamped the document "checked for money laundering purposes."
Less than a month later, according to the U.S. Justice Department, Quartell received nearly 2 million euro from a Latvian bank account that had received some of the stolen $230 million.
FBME, which was based in Tanzania, could not be reached for comment for this story. In May, the institution was shut down by Tanzania's central bank because of U.S. accusations that it was "used by its customers to facilitate money laundering, terrorist financing, transnational organized crime, fraud, sanctions evasions and other illicit activity internationally and through the US financial system," according to the US Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
There are oddities to Quartell-Balec transaction, according to financial analysts consulted by CNN who have examined the contract and supporting documents.
For one thing, Balec is described by FBME as being commercially engaged in the "buying/selling [of] promissory notes" and the import and export of building materials such as ceramic and marble tiles, timber, steel coils and "furnitures" [sic].
But it has no public profile or corporate website on which to showcase its inventory.
Ties to Assad's WMD?
The Syria-born Issa al-Zeydi does not have a conspicuous public profile in Russia, apart from a largely inactive social media page on VKontake, the Russian version of Facebook, which CNN has confirmed belongs to the man who owns Balec Ventures.
He graduated in 1964 from Bauman Moscow State Technical University, where he studied engineering.
According to corporate registration records in Russia, al-Zeydi is also the owner and/or CEO of several small companies with next to no capital.
One of these, Aldzhamal Interneshal, claims to work in "non-specialized wholesale trade," "the production of petroleum products" and the "manufacture of industrial gases."
He was also the director of Enterprises Ltd. and Fruminenti Investments Ltd., two companies that the U.S. sanctioned in 2014 for their connection to the Scientific Studies and Research Center, Syria's government agency responsible for developing and producing non-conventional weapons and ballistic missiles," according to the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
It is unclear if any of the $900,000 that Quartell wired to Balec went to support the Center.
Following the sarin attack in Syria in April, which prompted President Donald Trump to authorize US airstrikes against a Syrian airbase, the Treasury Department further sanctioned 271 employees of the Scientific Studies and Research Center, describing it as "one of the largest sanctions actions in its history."
Repeated attempts to contact Issa al-Zeydi in Moscow for this story, using the registered addresses of his Russian-based companies and phone numbers, proved unsuccessful.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/politics/ ... index.html
by Rory » Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:02 pm
by seemslikeadream » Sat Jun 17, 2017 6:34 pm
Revealed: UK Banks And Firms Handled £20 Million Connected To Russian Fraud Case
British authorities are under pressure to investigate evidence seen by BuzzFeed News that shows spending in the UK on yachts, private schools, computers, and more from companies connected to the alleged £150 million fraud against Hermitage Capital.
Posted on May 3, 2016, at 9:26 a.m.
By James Ball (Special Correspondent, BuzzFeed UK) Harry Davies (BuzzFeed Contributor) Chris Applegate (Editorial Developer, UK)
More
Leon Neal / AFP / Getty Images
Hermitage Capital Management
Bill Browder (left), the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, is appearing before parliament to present evidence on alleged UK money laundering. Browder's Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in prison in 2009 after being arrested while investigating the fraud.
UK authorities have been asked to investigate whether more than £20 million connected to one of the world’s largest and most politically controversial frauds was spent in the UK or entered the country's banking system.
Financial records seen by BuzzFeed News suggest money spent on yachts, private schools, electronic equipment, and numerous other services originated from companies linked to an alleged $230 million (£150 million) fraud against the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management and the Russian Treasury.
The new evidence has prompted fresh calls for a criminal investigation in the UK into the alleged fraud and subsequent money laundering. British authorities have refused on multiple occasions to launch an investigation, even though UK companies have been implicated in the alleged fraud, British citizens were directors of some of the companies involved, and Hermitage and its CEO are UK-resident.
The case is especially politically contentious following the 2009 death in a Russian prison of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer investigating the alleged fraud on behalf of Hermitage.
A further witness in the case, Alexander Perepilichnyy, was found dead in Surrey in unexplained circumstances in 2012, shortly before he was due to testify in Switzerland.
The US has issued sanctions against and frozen the US assets of several individuals allegedly involved in the crime, while the European parliament has recommended similar action by EU nations. BuzzFeed News understands 11 countries have launched fraud or money laundering investigations connected to the case.
Bill Browder, the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, is due to address parliament’s influential home affairs committee on Tuesday on the new evidence of UK spending in connection to the case. The material is also being passed to the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA).
Documentation reviewed by BuzzFeed News of transactions identified by Hermitage suggests the £20 million identified includes:
• A £164,000 transfer to Saxo Bank labelled “for yacht”, alongside further transfers totalling £250,000 to a “yacht consultant” for “legal services”;
• A payment of £13,600 to Queen Ethelburga’s, a private boarding school in North Yorkshire;
• A £115,315 payment to Harrods Estates, the luxury property management wing of Harrods;
• A transfer of £105,000 to the First International Bank of Israel listed as for “poligrafic [sic] equipment”;
• Payments totalling more than £5 million to Hewlett Packard Europe BV for equipment and maintenance.
There is no suggestion any of the UK companies or financial institutions were aware the payments received may have been connected to the proceeds of crime, but several of those contacted by BuzzFeed News have said they are now investigating the transactions.
The original fraud was one of the largest and most complex ever seen. An account of the alleged crime was assembled by the US Department of Justice in a court filing aimed at seizing US properties allegedly bought with the proceeds.
According to the filing, the “mastermind” of the fraud was Dmitry Klyuev, a Russian bank owner and convicted fraudster who in the run-up to the alleged offence assembled “key members” of his “criminal organisation”.
The alleged fraud involved seizing three subsidies of the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management, which held significant investments in Russia. These stolen companies then obtained a fraudulent $230 million tax refund from the Russian Treasury, the proceeds of which then travelled through an intricate web of companies and bank accounts spanning the globe.
One of the “key members” of this fraud, according to the DoJ, was the then manager of the tax office than processed the huge refund, Olga Stepanova. The court filing states she and her then husband travelled and met with Klyuev in advance of processing the refund.
Some of the companies apparently used in this phase of the alleged crime were notionally dormant UK companies. Records seen by BuzzFeed News suggest more than £180 million flowed through offshore bank accounts ostensibly owned by UK companies with sham directors – nominees who appear on official records but in reality act on orders of the company’s secret "real" owners – whose official filings told UK authorities the companies were inactive and not trading.
Some of the money travelling through this complex and globe-spanning web of companies and bank accounts eventually ended up in companies now linked to Klyuev and Stepanova.
Previous media accounts and documents seen by BuzzFeed News show one company, Altem Invest Inc, is beneficially owned by Dmitry Klyuev. Hermitage has suggested Klyuev owns another company connected to the alleged fraud, Zibar Management Inc.
Meanwhile, evidence presented to Swiss authorities suggested that a further two companies – Nomirex Trading Limited and Bristoll Export Limited – that received money allegedly connected to the Magnitsky fraud had indirectly paid for properties owned by the then husband of Olga Stepanova.
Here is a graphic showing the alleged money flow into Nomirex Trading and Bristoll Export from the fraud against the Russian Treasury, based on research by Hermitage Capital Management and US court documents. Each dot represents approximately $1 million.
Russian Treasury
Parfenion
Makhaon
Rilend
Fausta
Anika
ZhK
Universe
Mediart Group
LaniTime
Komino
Candy
DalProm
Aleksi
Optimal
Crocus
Inteks-M
SC Bunicon-Impex SRL
Nomirex Trading
Bristoll Export
StarMix
Trial
PromTorg
Omega
Kareras Limited, UK
Nord Piligrim
BuzzFeed News attempted to contact Klyuev and Stepanova through intermediaries for comment in connection to the original alleged fraud and the new evidence of UK spending, but was unsuccessful. Klyuev has previously commented that the allegations against him are untrue and the result of a campaign against him by Hermitage Capital Management. He has previously denied being the owner of Altem Invest.
The new evidence seen by BuzzFeed News shows money continued to flow from these companies to a network of still more shell companies, before being spent in legitimate UK businesses, or being processed by UK banks as it was spent elsewhere.
This graphic, based on the new evidence uncovered by Hermitage Capital Management from banking records, shows the route money took from Nomirex Trading and Bristoll Export into the UK. Again, each dot represents approximately $1 million.
Nomirex Trading
Bristoll Export
Eviac Holding
Vanterey Union
Zarina Group
Abacos Intertrade
Venta Productions
Delico Corp
Monovita
Natsilane Services
Itan Invest
Ornado Commercial
Companies in the UK
Browder told BuzzFeed News he hopes the evidence of UK spending, in addition to that he has previously presented to the NCA, the Serious Fraud Office, the Metropolitan police, and HM Revenue & Customs, will finally spur the UK into taking action.
"We all know that there are terrible crimes being committed in Russia and we all know there are rich Russians spending their money in the UK,” he said. “But this is the first time that we've been able to connect those crimes with all that lavish spending."
BuzzFeed News contacted the UK businesses who had transacted with companies connected with the alleged fraud, all of whom had made their payments through banks in Cyprus or Lithuania, asking whether they had any concerns about the customer, or had conducted enhanced checks.
Hewlett Packard Europe BV, which received a total of more than £5 million from companies allegedly connected to the fraud, said it was now investigating these payments.
“HP is committed to the highest standards of business conduct and maintains robust compliance programs,” said a spokeswoman. “The company takes allegations seriously and conducts thorough investigations into any claims. We are carefully evaluating the facts of this inquiry.”
A spokeswoman for Harrods Estates confirmed the transactions referred to by BuzzFeed – totalling around £115,000 – were made, but refused to discuss them further, citing confidentiality, although she said the firm would assist authorities if asked.
“Harrods Estates places a high priority on its anti-money laundering and other legal obligations and takes the matter extremely seriously,” she said. “We would be happy to assist the authorities should they wish to investigate this matter.”
Saxo Bank, which received payment for a yacht, acknowledged receipt of BuzzFeed’s inquiry but did not respond. Ward & McKenzie, the “yacht consultant”, said it would “investigate further” the evidence provided by BuzzFeed News.
FIBI Bank’s spokeswoman said that as the company sold its UK subsidiary several years ago it was unable to comment on the matter. A spokesman for Queen Ethelburga’s said it would “never discuss” an individual child’s education but had no knowledge of any alleged frauds.
An expert on international financial crime told BuzzFeed News there was a broader issue related to UK banks’ due diligence on questionable money entering the UK financial system.
“Banks are obliged to undertake proper due diligence and there has been an unfortunate history in recent years of our leading banks in London not doing so,” said Jonathan Fisher QC, a barrister at Devereux Chambers. “There is certainly a real concern that London is indeed a repository for proceeds of crime.”
BuzzFeed News found that most of the UK’s major financial institutions appeared in the records as processing payments to or from the complex web of companies connected to the proceeds of the alleged fraud, including HSBC, Lloyds, Citibank, JP Morgan, Barclays, NatWest, and RBS.
All of the banks – except Citibank and JP Morgan, which declined to provide any comment whatsoever – stressed they had extensive due-diligence procedures and took their responsibilities in this area seriously.
A spokesman for Lloyds said the bank was ready to assist authorities if asked.
“Lloyds Banking Group is not party to nor named in the litigation and has not had these allegations raised by any regulatory or government agency,” he said. “We would assist any inquiry from any government agency or regulator on this matter if raised.”
A senior staff member at one of the banks, who asked that neither they nor their institution be named, said their investigation into the inquiry had shown the transaction was related to “correspondent” banking – a common international banking procedure where one bank processes a transaction on behalf of another, using its own infrastructure.
The staff member said enacting due diligence on such transactions was more difficult than usual, as the bank was not acting for one of its own customers and so had less information to check.
This concern was echoed by the financial crime expert Jonathan Fisher QC.
“By the very nature of the correspondent relationship inevitably there’s a vulnerability,” he said, “because the correspondent bank is not in direct contact with the underlying beneficiary, so inevitably there is going to be an enhanced risk.”
BuzzFeed News contacted the NCA to ask whether it intended to launch a formal investigation in the light of Hermitage Capital Management’s new complaint.
“The NCA does not routinely confirm or deny the existence of investigations,” said a spokeswoman.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/reve ... .kn2JGbO3M
Moscow Court Hears New Evidence On Magnitsky’s Death
Print article Published: Wednesday, 24 May 2017 18:35
A lawyer representing the mother of Sergei Magnitsky submitted Wednesday to a Moscow court new evidence alleging that a Russian investigator orchestrated the cover-up of the deceased whistleblower’s death.
A representative from Hermitage Capital Management - the investment adviser to the largest foreign investment fund in Russia until 2005 - told OCCRP that Nikolai Gorokhov was "brave enough to appear at the court on Wednesday."
Gorokhov was due in March to contest a refusal by another court to investigate new evidence relating to the so-called "Pavlov Leaks," which revealed how tax officials colluded with police and an organized crime group in a US$ 230 million tax rebate fraud scheme – the largest in Russian history – that targeted Hermitage Capital.
Instead, Gorokhov fell four stories from his apartment the night before his scheduled hearing in what many believe was an act intended to stop his activities, according to a press release by Hermitage’s advocacy group, Law and Order in Russia.
Magnitsky, a prominent lawyer, died in a Moscow jail from mistreatment and neglect after accusing Russian tax officials of stealing US$ 230 million.
Gorokhov’s filed complaint alleges that Russian investigator Strizhov covered-up Magnitsky's death by closing the case on claims that there was "no crime," despite injuries on Magnitsky’s body.
Gorokhov’s new evidence includes WhatsApp conversations and emails that show Strizhov worked closely with suspects implicated by Magnitsky’s leak, while purportedly investigating them.
The "Pavlov Leaks" claim that there were agreements between Strizhov and members of an organized crime group called Klyuev one month before Strizhov exonerated Pavlov, Interior Ministry officer Urzhumtsev and other criminal group associates from liability for the US$230 million theft.
Further details about Wednesday’s court hearing have not been released yet.
https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/6497-mos ... ky-s-death
Russian Lawyer Nikolai Gorokhov Thrown From Window Was a Witness for the U.S. Government
http://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-la ... government
by PufPuf93 » Sun Jun 18, 2017 7:51 pm
by BenDhyan » Sun Jun 18, 2017 8:31 pm
Iran Launches Missile Strikes Targeting ISIS in Syria, Dramatically Escalating Role in Syrian Conflict
Iran announced Sunday the Iran Revolutionary Guards had launched ballistic missile strikes on Saturday against ISIS targets in Syria, dramatically escalating the country’s role in the Syrian conflict. The mid-range ground-to-ground missiles targeted militants in eastern Syria in retaliation for the deadly terrorist attacks in Tehran earlier this month. Iran vowed to respond to a brazen coordinated pair of attacks on its parliament building and the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. ISIS claimed responsibility for the June 7th attack. An Iranian official called the strikes “soft revenge” for the Tehran attacks.
The extent of the damage from the missile strikes in the ISIS stronghold remains unclear. A statement from the Revolutionary Guards claimed the attack killed terrorists and destroyed equipment and weapons.
“Sunday’s assault marked an extremely rare direct attack from the Islamic Republic amid its support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad,” the Associated Press notes. This is the first use of mid-range missiles in nearly 30 years, since the end its war with Iraq. Iran, a majority Shiite state, is allied with the Assad regime in Syria and has been providing military assistance in the government’s multidirectional battle against insurgent groups there.
by BenDhyan » Mon Jun 19, 2017 7:40 am
Russian military halts Syria sky incident prevention interactions with US as of June 19 – Moscow
Published time: 19 Jun, 2017
The Russian Defense Ministry announced it is halting cooperation with its US counterparts in the framework of the Memorandum on the Prevention of Incidents and Ensuring Air Safety in Syria following the coalition’s downing of a Syrian warplane.
The ministry has demanded a thorough investigation by the US military command into the incident with the Syrian government military jet, with the results to be shared with the Russian side.
“In the areas of combat missions of Russian air fleet in Syrian skies, any airborne objects, including aircraft and unmanned vehicles of the [US-led] international coalition, located to the west of the Euphrates River, will be tracked by Russian ground and air defense forces as air targets,” the Russian Ministry of Defense stated.
Iran shows strong hand with strike
Mon Jun 19, 2017
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) fired six medium-range missiles which "pounded" the Takfiri group's command headquarters as well as arms and ammunition centers Sunday night, IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif said on Monday.
"According to reliable information, the missile operation against Daesh has been successful," he said. The attack, he said, was "only a fraction of Iran's punitive power against terrorists and other enemies."
Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Force, said the missiles were fired from the Iranian provinces of Kermanshah and Kurdistan and flew over Iraq before landing in Syria.
"The UAVs which had been flown from around Damascus to Dayr al-Zawr transmitted the moments of impact to us in Iran," he said, adding "the missiles precisely hit their targets."
-snip-
It came on the same day the US military admitted to having shot down a Syrian jet over Raqqah. Last month, US aircraft bombed a convoy of Syrian tanks after they advanced in an area near the Iraqi and Jordanian border in the wake of Daesh retreats.
by BenDhyan » Mon Jun 26, 2017 7:47 am
Sy Hersh Bombshell: US Knew No Sarin in Syria 'Gas Attack', Trump Bombed Anyway
by Elvis » Mon Jun 26, 2017 2:10 pm
BenDhyan » Mon Jun 26, 2017 4:47 am wrote:This is a long article so I just provide the headline and a link for those who may be interested in the details...Sy Hersh Bombshell: US Knew No Sarin in Syria 'Gas Attack', Trump Bombed Anyway
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/sy-hersh-bombshell-us-knew-no-sarin-syria-gas-attack-trump-bombed-anyway/ri20206
by seemslikeadream » Mon Jun 26, 2017 10:00 pm
by BenDhyan » Mon Jun 26, 2017 11:42 pm
The U.S. has “identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime” in Syria, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a Monday night statement.
by Elvis » Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:50 am
BenDhyan wrote:This is a long article so I just provide the headline and a link for those who may be interested in the details...
Sy Hersh Bombshell: US Knew No Sarin in Syria 'Gas Attack', Trump Bombed Anyway
https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/art ... -Line.html
Ausland Syria
Trump‘s Red Line
Von Seymour M. Hersh | Stand: 25.06.2017 | Lesedauer: 24 Minuten
President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he decided to attack Syria after he saw pictures of dying children. Seymour M. Hersh investigated the case of the alleged Sarin gas attack.
On April 6, United States President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon.
The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack, including information on its so-called high-value targets, had been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all U.S., allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region.
Some American military and intelligence officials were especially distressed by the president's determination to ignore the evidence. "None of this makes any sense," one officer told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb. "We KNOW that there was no chemical attack ... the Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth ... I guess it didn't matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.“
Within hours of the April 4 bombing, the world’s media was saturated with photographs and videos from Khan Sheikhoun. Pictures of dead and dying victims, allegedly suffering from the symptoms of nerve gas poisoning, were uploaded to social media by local activists, including the White Helmets, a first responder group known for its close association with the Syrian opposition.
To the dismay of many senior members of his national security team, Trump could not be swayed over the next 48 hours of intense briefings and decision-making. In a series of interviews, I learned of the total disconnect between the president and many of his military advisers and intelligence officials, as well as officers on the ground in the region who had an entirely different understanding of the nature of Syria’s attack on Khan Sheikhoun. I was provided with evidence of that disconnect, in the form of transcripts of real-time communications, immediately following the Syrian attack on April 4. In an important pre-strike process known as deconfliction, U.S. and Russian officers routinely supply one another with advance details of planned flight paths and target coordinates, to ensure that there is no risk of collision or accidental encounter (the Russians speak on behalf of the Syrian military). This information is supplied daily to the American AWACS surveillance planes that monitor the flights once airborne. Deconfliction’s success and importance can be measured by the fact that there has yet to be one collision, or even a near miss, among the high-powered supersonic American, Allied, Russian and Syrian fighter bombers.
Russian and Syrian Air Force officers gave details of the carefully planned flight path to and from Khan Shiekhoun on April 4 directly, in English, to the deconfliction monitors aboard the AWACS plane, which was on patrol near the Turkish border, 60 miles or more to the north.
The Syrian target at Khan Sheikhoun, as shared with the Americans at Doha, was depicted as a two-story cinder-block building in the northern part of town. Russian intelligence, which is shared when necessary with Syria and the U.S. as part of their joint fight against jihadist groups, had established that a high-level meeting of jihadist leaders was to take place in the building, including representatives of Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Qaida-affiliated group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra. The two groups had recently joined forces, and controlled the town and surrounding area. Russian intelligence depicted the cinder-block building as a command and control center that housed a grocery and other commercial premises on its ground floor with other essential shops nearby, including a fabric shop and an electronics store.
"The rebels control the population by controlling the distribution of goods that people need to live – food, water, cooking oil, propane gas, fertilizers for growing their crops, and insecticides to protect the crops," a senior adviser to the American intelligence community, who has served in senior positions in the Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency, told me. The basement was used as storage for rockets, weapons and ammunition, as well as products that could be distributed for free to the community, among them medicines and chlorine-based decontaminants for cleansing the bodies of the dead before burial. The meeting place – a regional headquarters – was on the floor above. “It was an established meeting place,” the senior adviser said. “A long-time facility that would have had security, weapons, communications, files and a map center.” The Russians were intent on confirming their intelligence and deployed a drone for days above the site to monitor communications and develop what is known in the intelligence community as a POL – a pattern of life. The goal was to take note of those going in and out of the building, and to track weapons being moved back and forth, including rockets and ammunition.
One reason for the Russian message to Washington about the intended target was to ensure that any CIA asset or informant who had managed to work his way into the jihadist leadership was forewarned not to attend the meeting. I was told that the Russians passed the warning directly to the CIA. “They were playing the game right,” the senior adviser said. The Russian guidance noted that the jihadist meeting was coming at a time of acute pressure for the insurgents: Presumably Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham were desperately seeking a path forward in the new political climate. In the last few days of March, Trump and two of his key national security aides – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley – had made statements acknowledging that, as the New York Times put it, the White House “has abandoned the goal” of pressuring Assad "to leave power, marking a sharp departure from the Middle East policy that guided the Obama administration for more than five years.” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told a press briefing on March 31 that “there is a political reality that we have to accept,” implying that Assad was there to stay.
Russian and Syrian intelligence officials, who coordinate operations closely with the American command posts, made it clear that the planned strike on Khan Sheikhoun was special because of the high-value target. “It was a red-hot change. The mission was out of the ordinary – scrub the sked,” the senior adviser told me. “Every operations officer in the region" – in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, CIA and NSA – “had to know there was something going on. The Russians gave the Syrian Air Force a guided bomb and that was a rarity. They’re skimpy with their guided bombs and rarely share them with the Syrian Air Force. And the Syrians assigned their best pilot to the mission, with the best wingman.” The advance intelligence on the target, as supplied by the Russians, was given the highest possible score inside the American community.
The Execute Order governing U.S. military operations in theater, which was issued by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provide instructions that demarcate the relationship between the American and Russian forces operating in Syria. “It’s like an ops order – ‘Here’s what you are authorized to do,’” the adviser said. “We do not share operational control with the Russians. We don’t do combined operations with them, or activities directly in support of one of their operations. But coordination is permitted. We keep each other apprised of what’s happening and within this package is the mutual exchange of intelligence. If we get a hot tip that could help the Russians do their mission, that’s coordination; and the Russians do the same for us. When we get a hot tip about a command and control facility,” the adviser added, referring to the target in Khan Sheikhoun, “we do what we can to help them act on it."
“This was not a chemical weapons strike,” the adviser said. “That’s a fairy tale. If so, everyone involved in transferring, loading and arming the weapon – you’ve got to make it appear like a regular 500-pound conventional bomb – would be wearing Hazmat protective clothing in case of a leak. There would be very little chance of survival without such gear. Military grade sarin includes additives designed to increase toxicity and lethality. Every batch that comes out is maximized for death. That is why it is made. It is odorless and invisible and death can come within a minute. No cloud. Why produce a weapon that people can run away from?”
The target was struck at 6:55 a.m. on April 4, just before midnight in Washington. A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground. According to intelligence estimates, the senior adviser said, the strike itself killed up to four jihadist leaders, and an unknown number of drivers and security aides. There is no confirmed count of the number of civilians killed by the poisonous gases that were released by the secondary explosions, although opposition activists reported that there were more than 80 dead, and outlets such as CNN have put the figure as high as 92. A team from Médecins Sans Frontières, treating victims from Khan Sheikhoun at a clinic 60 miles to the north, reported that “eight patients showed symptoms – including constricted pupils, muscle spasms and involuntary defecation – which are consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as sarin gas or similar compounds.” MSF also visited other hospitals that had received victims and found that patients there “smelled of bleach, suggesting that they had been exposed to chlorine.” In other words, evidence suggested that there was more than one chemical responsible for the symptoms observed, which would not have been the case if the Syrian Air Force – as opposition activists insisted – had dropped a sarin bomb, which has no percussive or ignition power to trigger secondary explosions. The range of symptoms is, however, consistent with the release of a mixture of chemicals, including chlorine and the organophosphates used in many fertilizers, which can cause neurotoxic effects similar to those of sarin.
The internet swung into action within hours, and gruesome photographs of the victims flooded television networks and YouTube. U.S. intelligence was tasked with establishing what had happened. Among the pieces of information received was an intercept of Syrian communications collected before the attack by an allied nation. The intercept, which had a particularly strong effect on some of Trump’s aides, did not mention nerve gas or sarin, but it did quote a Syrian general discussing a “special” weapon and the need for a highly skilled pilot to man the attack plane. The reference, as those in the American intelligence community understood, and many of the inexperienced aides and family members close to Trump may not have, was to a Russian-supplied bomb with its built-in guidance system.
“If you’ve already decided it was a gas attack, you will then inevitably read the talk about a special weapon as involving a sarin bomb,” the adviser said. “Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.”
At the UN the next day, Ambassador Haley created a media sensation when she displayed photographs of the dead and accused Russia of being complicit. “How many more children have to die before Russia cares?” she asked. NBC News, in a typical report that day, quoted American officials as confirming that nerve gas had been used and Haley tied the attack directly to Syrian President Assad. "We know that yesterday’s attack was a new low even for the barbaric Assad regime,” she said. There was irony in America's rush to blame Syria and criticize Russia for its support of Syria's denial of any use of gas in Khan Sheikhoun, as Ambassador Haley and others in Washington did. "What doesn't occur to most Americans" the adviser said, "is if there had been a Syrian nerve gas attack authorized by Bashar, the Russians would be 10 times as upset as anyone in the West. Russia’s strategy against ISIS, which involves getting American cooperation, would have been destroyed and Bashar would be responsible for pissing off Russia, with unknown consequences for him. Bashar would do that? When he’s on the verge of winning the war? Are you kidding me?”
Trump, a constant watcher of television news, said, while King Abdullah of Jordan was sitting next to him in the Oval Office, that what had happened was “horrible, horrible” and a “terrible affront to humanity.” Asked if his administration would change its policy toward the Assad government, he said: “You will see.” He gave a hint of the response to come at the subsequent news conference with King Abdullah: “When you kill innocent children, innocent babies – babies, little babies – with a chemical gas that is so lethal ... that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line . ... That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. Big impact ... It’s very, very possible ... that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.”
Within hours of viewing the photos, the adviser said, Trump instructed the national defense apparatus to plan for retaliation against Syria. “He did this before he talked to anybody about it. The planners then asked the CIA and DIA if there was any evidence that Syria had sarin stored at a nearby airport or somewhere in the area. Their military had to have it somewhere in the area in order to bomb with it.” “The answer was, ‘We have no evidence that Syria had sarin or used it,’” the adviser said. “The CIA also told them that there was no residual delivery for sarin at Sheyrat [the airfield from which the Syrian SU-24 bombers had taken off on April 4] and Assad had no motive to commit political suicide.” Everyone involved, except perhaps the president, also understood that a highly skilled United Nations team had spent more than a year in the aftermath of an alleged sarin attack in 2013 by Syria, removing what was said to be all chemical weapons from a dozen Syrian chemical weapons depots.
At this point, the adviser said, the president’s national security planners were more than a little rattled: “No one knew the provenance of the photographs. We didn’t know who the children were or how they got hurt. Sarin actually is very easy to detect because it penetrates paint, and all one would have to do is get a paint sample. We knew there was a cloud and we knew it hurt people. But you cannot jump from there to certainty that Assad had hidden sarin from the UN because he wanted to use it in Khan Sheikhoun.” The intelligence made clear that a Syrian Air Force SU-24 fighter bomber had used a conventional weapon to hit its target: There had been no chemical warhead. And yet it was impossible for the experts to persuade the president of this once he had made up his mind. “The president saw the photographs of poisoned little girls and said it was an Assad atrocity,” the senior adviser said. “It’s typical of human nature. You jump to the conclusion you want. Intelligence analysts do not argue with a president. They’re not going to tell the president, ‘if you interpret the data this way, I quit.’”
The national security advisers understood their dilemma: Trump wanted to respond to the affront to humanity committed by Syria and he did not want to be dissuaded. They were dealing with a man they considered to be not unkind and not stupid, but his limitations when it came to national security decisions were severe. "Everyone close to him knows his proclivity for acting precipitously when he does not know the facts," the adviser said. "He doesn’t read anything and has no real historical knowledge. He wants verbal briefings and photographs. He’s a risk-taker. He can accept the consequences of a bad decision in the business world; he will just lose money. But in our world, lives will be lost and there will be long-term damage to our national security if he guesses wrong. He was told we did not have evidence of Syrian involvement and yet Trump says: 'Do it.”’
On April 6, Trump convened a meeting of national security officials at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The meeting was not to decide what to do, but how best to do it – or, as some wanted, how to do the least and keep Trump happy. “The boss knew before the meeting that they didn’t have the intelligence, but that was not the issue,” the adviser said. “The meeting was about, ‘Here’s what I’m going to do,' and then he gets the options.”
The available intelligence was not relevant. The most experienced man at the table was Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who had the president’s respect and understood, perhaps, how quickly that could evaporate. Mike Pompeo, the CIA director whose agency had consistently reported that it had no evidence of a Syrian chemical bomb, was not present. Secretary of State Tillerson was admired on the inside for his willingness to work long hours and his avid reading of diplomatic cables and reports, but he knew little about waging war and the management of a bombing raid. Those present were in a bind, the adviser said. “The president was emotionally energized by the disaster and he wanted options.” He got four of them, in order of extremity. Option one was to do nothing. All involved, the adviser said, understood that was a non-starter. Option two was a slap on the wrist: to bomb an airfield in Syria, but only after alerting the Russians and, through them, the Syrians, to avoid too many casualties. A few of the planners called this the “gorilla option”: America would glower and beat its chest to provoke fear and demonstrate resolve, but cause little significant damage. The third option was to adopt the strike package that had been presented to Obama in 2013, and which he ultimately chose not to pursue. The plan called for the massive bombing of the main Syrian airfields and command and control centers using B1 and B52 aircraft launched from their bases in the U.S. Option four was “decapitation”: to remove Assad by bombing his palace in Damascus, as well as his command and control network and all of the underground bunkers he could possibly retreat to in a crisis.
“Trump ruled out option one off the bat,” the senior adviser said, and the assassination of Assad was never considered. “But he said, in essence: ‘You’re the military and I want military action.’” The president was also initially opposed to the idea of giving the Russians advance warning before the strike, but reluctantly accepted it. “We gave him the Goldilocks option – not too hot, not too cold, but just right.” The discussion had its bizarre moments. Tillerson wondered at the Mar-a-Lago meeting why the president could not simply call in the B52 bombers and pulverize the air base. He was told that B52s were very vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in the area and using such planes would require suppression fire that could kill some Russian defenders. “What is that?” Tillerson asked. Well, sir, he was told, that means we would have to destroy the upgraded SAM sites along the B52 flight path, and those are manned by Russians, and we possibly would be confronted with a much more difficult situation. “The lesson here was: Thank God for the military men at the meeting,” the adviser said. "They did the best they could when confronted with a decision that had already been made."
Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles were fired from two U.S. Navy destroyers on duty in the Mediterranean, the Ross and the Porter, at Shayrat Air Base near the government-controlled city of Homs. The strike was as successful as hoped, in terms of doing minimal damage. The missiles have a light payload – roughly 220 pounds of HBX, the military’s modern version of TNT. The airfield’s gasoline storage tanks, a primary target, were pulverized, the senior adviser said, triggering a huge fire and clouds of smoke that interfered with the guidance system of following missiles. As many as 24 missiles missed their targets and only a few of the Tomahawks actually penetrated into hangars, destroying nine Syrian aircraft, many fewer than claimed by the Trump administration. I was told that none of the nine was operational: such damaged aircraft are what the Air Force calls hangar queens. “They were sacrificial lambs,” the senior adviser said. Most of the important personnel and operational fighter planes had been flown to nearby bases hours before the raid began. The two runways and parking places for aircraft, which had also been targeted, were repaired and back in operation within eight hours or so. All in all, it was little more than an expensive fireworks display.
“It was a totally Trump show from beginning to end,” the senior adviser said. “A few of the president’s senior national security advisers viewed the mission as a minimized bad presidential decision, and one that they had an obligation to carry out. But I don’t think our national security people are going to allow themselves to be hustled into a bad decision again. If Trump had gone for option three, there might have been some immediate resignations.”
After the meeting, with the Tomahawks on their way, Trump spoke to the nation from Mar-a-Lago, and accused Assad of using nerve gas to choke out “the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many ... No child of God should ever suffer such horror.” The next few days were his most successful as president. America rallied around its commander in chief, as it always does in times of war. Trump, who had campaigned as someone who advocated making peace with Assad, was bombing Syria 11 weeks after taking office, and was hailed for doing so by Republicans, Democrats and the media alike. One prominent TV anchorman, Brian Williams of MSNBC, used the word “beautiful” to describe the images of the Tomahawks being launched at sea. Speaking on CNN, Fareed Zakaria said: “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States.” A review of the top 100 American newspapers showed that 39 of them published editorials supporting the bombing in its aftermath, including the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
Five days later, the Trump administration gathered the national media for a background briefing on the Syrian operation that was conducted by a senior White House official who was not to be identified. The gist of the briefing was that Russia’s heated and persistent denial of any sarin use in the Khan Sheikhoun bombing was a lie because President Trump had said sarin had been used. That assertion, which was not challenged or disputed by any of the reporters present, became the basis for a series of further criticisms:
- The continued lying by the Trump administration about Syria’s use of sarin led to widespread belief in the American media and public that Russia had chosen to be involved in a corrupt disinformation and cover-up campaign on the part of Syria.
- Russia’s military forces had been co-located with Syria’s at the Shayrat airfield (as they are throughout Syria), raising the possibility that Russia had advance notice of Syria’s determination to use sarin at Khan Sheikhoun and did nothing to stop it.
- Syria’s use of sarin and Russia’s defense of that use strongly suggested that Syria withheld stocks of the nerve agent from the UN disarmament team that spent much of 2014 inspecting and removing all declared chemical warfare agents from 12 Syrian chemical weapons depots, pursuant to the agreement worked out by the Obama administration and Russia after Syria’s alleged, but still unproven, use of sarin the year before against a rebel redoubt in a suburb of Damascus.
The briefer, to his credit, was careful to use the words “think,” “suggest” and “believe” at least 10 times during the 30-minute event. But he also said that his briefing was based on data that had been declassified by “our colleagues in the intelligence community.” What the briefer did not say, and may not have known, was that much of the classified information in the community made the point that Syria had not used sarin in the April 4 bombing attack.
The mainstream press responded the way the White House had hoped it would: Stories attacking Russia’s alleged cover-up of Syria’s sarin use dominated the news and many media outlets ignored the briefer’s myriad caveats. There was a sense of renewed Cold War. The New York Times, for example – America’s leading newspaper – put the following headline on its account: “White House Accuses Russia of Cover-Up in Syria Chemical Attack.” The Times’ account did note a Russian denial, but what was described by the briefer as “declassified information” suddenly became a “declassified intelligence report.” Yet there was no formal intelligence report stating that Syria had used sarin, merely a "summary based on declassified information about the attacks," as the briefer referred to it.
The crisis slid into the background by the end of April, as Russia, Syria and the United States remained focused on annihilating ISIS and the militias of al-Qaida. Some of those who had worked through the crisis, however, were left with lingering concerns. “The Salafists and jihadists got everything they wanted out of their hyped-up Syrian nerve gas ploy,” the senior adviser to the U.S. intelligence community told me, referring to the flare up of tensions between Syria, Russia and America. “The issue is, what if there’s another false flag sarin attack credited to hated Syria? Trump has upped the ante and painted himself into a corner with his decision to bomb. And do not think these guys are not planning the next faked attack. Trump will have no choice but to bomb again, and harder. He’s incapable of saying he made a mistake.”
The White House did not answer specific questions about the bombing of Khan Sheikhoun and the airport of Shayrat. These questions were send via e-mail to the White House on June 15 and never answered.
Seymour M. Hersh exposed the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam 1968. He uncovered the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and many other stories about war and politics
by seemslikeadream » Tue Jun 27, 2017 8:30 am
Is this Trump's insane way of reacting to Seymour Hersh's story?"
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities." —Karl Rove
by Elvis » Tue Jun 27, 2017 2:21 pm
by conniption » Tue Jun 27, 2017 5:32 pm
MoA
June 27, 2017
White House Says It Will Fake "Chemical Weapon Attack" In Syria
The White House claims that the Syrian government is preparing "chemical weapon attacks". This is clearly not the case. Syria is winning the war against the country. Any such attack would clearly be to its disadvantage. The White House announcement must thereby be understood as preparation for another U.S. attack on Syria in "retaliation" for an upcoming staged "chemical weapon attack" which will be blamed on the Syrian government...
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