Dr. Piers Robinson, a prominent British Academic, recently published a detailed report questioning the alleged claims of the 2018 attack in Douma, Syria that killed 43 civilians. He outlined the controversy concerning the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and their attempts to accuse the Syrian government of launching chemical weaponry. The incident took place during the NATO-Gulf backed regime-change war on the Arab country which began in 2011.

Robinson’s report comes shortly after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad government by the Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group, the offshoot of Al Qaeda in Syria, aiming to address the revival of the Douma controversy.

After the initial reports in 2018 framed the Assad government as the culprit for deadly chemical weaponry, two “whistleblower” inspectors involved in the OPCW investigation reported that evidence was being manipulated and evidence suppressed to support this culpability. From new statements that highlight experiences from the attack to medical staff admitting they were coerced into giving false testimonies, the initial claims about the government’s role in the attack and the nature of the attack are now all into question. 

Testimonies back in 2018 were largely given by the “White Helmets,” an organization set up by former British military officers which receives substantial funding from the US and UK governments. Robinson explains in his report that the White Helmets played a key role in supplying information to OPCW missions.  The original interim report by the OPCW was suppressed by the OPCW management shortly thereafter and had displayed two competing narratives, one under governmental opposition groups claiming attacks occurred and another affiliated with the government stating no attack had occurred or giving other details surrounding the nature of other weaponry used.

Robinson notes that “the suppressed original interim report made clear that witness claims could therefore not be presumed to be factual.” 

Robinson accounts suspicious details surrounding the photos and details uploaded by the “White Helmets” and how the analysis of their “evidence” seem to neither prove a chlorine attack nor a nerve attack. He states that the Chlorine gas cylinder that is apparently in the photo shows “minimal damage which is actually incompatible to the damage seen in the image that followed.” The foaming seen in the mouths of the deceased seemed to support a “nerve agent attack” and is not the hallmark of chlorine chemical weaponry.

An initial report from the US indicated nerve agent attack, however, subsequent analysis results indicated no traces of nerve agent. Robinson states that because US medical reports seemingly disproved nerve agent attacks, the only other candidate would have to be the yellow chlorine cylinder found “poisoned over a hole on the balcony,” but unlike a nerve agent, “chlorine gas is not normally associated with rapid collapse and death, whilst those exposed would usually readily escape any gas cloud by running away as soon as they encounter the uncomfortable effects of chlorine gas.” 

If blood test results indicated no nerve agent attacks and the details surrounding the scene disproved chlorine gas weaponry, it brings to question the nature of the Douma attack of 2018. The original report by the OPCW, which they now suppressed, did state the possibility of “fatalities resulting from a non-chemical related incident.”

The conflicting details of claims provided by a barrage of different groups, may make the actual truth of what happened murky, however, Robinson’s report makes one thing clear — the OPCW has without a doubt censored initial reports and played around with evidence that doesn’t serve their “pro-regime change” narratives.

Robinson states,

“the ways in which the OPCW has been bent toward the will of Western governments, well documented in the case of the two OPCW whistleblowers, highlights how the organisation has become a major threat to international peace and security.”