“Saving Syria’s Children”: Response to the HuffPo
Corrections and clarifications to “Keith Allen Thinks The BBC May Have Faked ‘Apocalyptic’ Attack In Syria”
Robert Stuart
News and opinion website The Huffington Post has written about my campaign to crowdfund a documentary about the 2013 BBC Panorama programme Saving Syria’s Children.
Keith Allen Thinks The BBC May Have Faked ‘Apocalyptic’ Attack In Syria was published on May 4th 2019. Some notes in response follow.
Stuart says he has spent nearly six years compiling “a mountain of evidence” that shows the BBC’s footage was “faked”. He claims the national broadcaster worked “cheek by jowl with Isis” to produce the Panorama documentary, which was broadcast in September 2013.
Evidence that sequences in Saving Syria’s Children were fabricated is set out on my blog. Readers are free to make their own topographical analogies.
During the programme’s making BBC Panorama reporter Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway were embedded with then ISIS partner group Ahrar al-Sham – a group described elsewhere by the BBC as “hard-line Islamist”. Less than three weeks earlier Ahrar al-Sham, ISIS and other groups together killed over 190 civilians, including women, children and elderly men, and kidnapped over 200 mostly women and children.
In the programme’s climactic scenes of the aftermath of an alleged incendiary attack the BBC crew filmed at close quarters an ambulance prominently bearing the ISIS emblem and its militarily attired occupants, at least one of whom was armed.
In an interview with TalkRadio on Friday, Stuart claimed “the only source of [this attack] is the BBC”. However, the strike was also reported by NBC News who interviewed doctors who described the “apocalyptic” attack in detail, documented in painstaking detail by the Violations Documentation Centre in Syria (VDCS), and confirmed by Human Rights Watch.
The NBC News article cited features an interview with a single volunteer doctor named “Roula”. This is clearly Dr Rola Hallam. Dr Hallam and Dr Saleyha Ahsan were being followed by the BBC Panorama team of reporter Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway as they visited hospitals run by the UK charity Hand in Hand for Syria. As such Hallam was central to the BBC reports in question and cannot be considered an independent commentator. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The Violations Documentation Centre in Syria report cited gives the time of the alleged attack as follows:
On 26 Aug 2013, at 02:00 pm, the Syrian air forces shelled ‘Iqraa’ Institution in Orm Al Kubra in Aleppo, which had been under the Free Army’s control for several months then.
The VDCS report also quotes Mustapha Haid, “Head of ‘Doulati Organization/My State Organization’”:
At 3 in the afternoon, On 26 Aug 2013, I was in Al Atareb City and I heard rumours about a ‘chemical attack’ on Orm Al Kubra and that tens of casualties were brought to Al Atareb Hospital.
However the BBC has categorically stated in complaints correspondence that:
The attack happened on the 26th of August at around 5.30pm at the end of the school day.[5]
The VDCS report quotes a second witness, Issa Obeid, “Head of Nursing Department in Al Atareb Hospital”, who provides a first-hand account of his actions at Atareb Hospital:
We washed the casualties with water and serums after taking off their clothes. We used ‘Florasline’ liniment on the burnt areas and provided the casualties with fluids and some of them were given tranquilizers like Morphine.
However on 26 August 2013 Issa (or Iessa) Obied would appear not to have been present at Atareb but to have been attending a battle first aid training course in Antakia, Turkey. [6]
Iessa Obied has been photographed posing with an arsenal of weaponry including assault rifles, an anti-aircraft gun and a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile. [7] [8]
The Huffington Post reports that the strike was “confirmed by Human Rights Watch”. However Mary Wareham, Advocacy Director of HRW’s Arms Division, stated in a contemporary (August 2013) article that Human Rights Watch has “not investigated this incident“. [9]
HuffPost UK asked a team of ex-military and medical professionals who teach hostile environment training to view the full Panorama footage to comment on its authenticity.
Questions about Hostile Environment Awareness Training, the company cited by the Huffington Post, are raised by journalist Kit Klarenberg.
With the predictability of Chinese water torture, York's once again written a propagandistic ad hominem hatchet job on an independent researcher, in this case @cerumol. Leaving aside his puerile insults, the 'experts' he apparently consulted are worthy of close investigation… https://t.co/V47WfyWv3E
— Kit Klarenberg (@KitKlarenberg) May 4, 2019
They described it as “legitimate” and “consistent with chemical exposure”, adding the select footage in Stuart and Allen’s promotional video had been “cleverly” edited in a way to manipulate the viewer.
The BBC has been at pains to assert “that this was an attack using an incendiary device, rather than a chemical weapon.”
As noted on my blog a GMC registered doctor with burns experience has concluded that the scenes of alleged incendiary bomb victims arriving at Atareb Hospital in Saving Syria’s Children were “an act”. Further sceptical comment by medical professionals, including former UK and US military personnel, plus observations by lay people with experience of burns victims, is collated here. [10]
None of the BBC footage used in the crowdfunding video has been altered in any way, save for basic editing techniques such as freeze frame and fade.
Stuart also takes issue with the fact the documentary makers – reporter Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway – worked alongside the armed Islamist groups that controlled the Aleppo region where Atarib is situated.
When required, all major media organisations negotiate access with whoever controls the area in question. Numerous journalists have risked their lives to report on what is happening inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Hamas-controlled Gaza or Boko Haram-controlled Nigeria, for example.
It is clearly in the public interest for BBC audiences to be made aware that a portion of their license fee revenue has apparently been paid to a jihadist group co-founded by “one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted couriers”.
The BBC rebutted the claims made by Stuart and Allen in a statement to HuffPost UK, saying there is “absolutely no evidence that any part of the programme was fabricated”.
It added: “Any such suggestion is offensive to the victims, medics and reporters.”
This statement was published on Facebook by BBC Panorama editor Rachel Jupp over two years ago in response to challenges made by film, television and radio producer Victor Lewis-Smith.
An RT report based on Stuart’s work was found to be in breach of Ofcom broadcasting rules and described as “materially misleading”.
Some important caveats in Ofcom’s finding against the RT programme in question have been noted by OffGuardian:
To be clear, according to OfCom’s own description of its remit, in the dispute between RT and the BBC, OfCom did not look into the BBC’s accuracy or credibility. Nor did OfCom investigate whether RT’s allegations of fakery were true or false. In fact the Broadcast Bulletin makes it clear OfCom ruled in favour of the BBC based solely on two things:
A) a finding that RT had broken “Rule 7 of the Code”, which requires a broadcaster to allow sufficient right of reply to anyone accused.
B) a finding that RT had infringed “Rule 2.2 of the Code” which requires a broadcaster not to present facts in a way likely to “mislead the viewer” – based on the fact RT had referred to Robert Stuart’s ongoing investigation into the BBC’s Panorama program as a “massive public investigation”, when OfCom thought the size of his investigation did not merit such an epithet.
Anyone can visit Robert Stuart’s website and decide for themselves if his investigation can fairly be described as “massive”, but the extent to which OfCom’s findings are themselves factual inaccuracies I’ll leave for others to explore. The most significant point here is that OfCom has specifically not cleared the BBC of suspicion of wrongdoing, and is not claiming to have done so.
Notes
[1] At the time the BBC Panorama programme Saving Syria’s Children aired in 2013 Dr Hallam’s father, Dr Mousa al-Kurdi, was a prominent Syrian opposition advocate who in 2012 had personally lobbied senior political representatives of NATO member states, including US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, to either intervene directly on the side of the opposition in Syria or to provide arms to the Free Syrian Army.
[2] The NBC article reports Hallam’s claim that the first case she received was a seven month old baby who “was covered in full-body burns”. Hallam has elsewhere stated that the baby had “80% burns”.
However Dr Saleyha Ahsan, who is seen treating the infant in the same room as Dr Hallam in Saving Syria’s Children, has stated that the child had “nasty scolds [sic] on his legs”. Stills from the programme do not make it clear that the child had sustained any burns at all.
Hallam, Ahsan and BBC reporter Ian Pannell have made contradictory claims about whether the baby was the first victim to arrive at Atareb Hospital on 26 August 2013. Hallam and Ahsan have additionally made self-contradictory claims on the topic.
Speaking at the Women of the World Summit in New York in 2017 Hallam gave an account of the attack which is at considerable variance with the BBC Panorama narrative, notably introducing a warplane flying over the hospital necessitating the staff’s retreat to the basement prior to the victims’ arrival. In stark contradiction Ahsan has claimed that she “was sitting on the hospital balcony… …drinking my fifth cup of sweet, sugary tea” immediately prior to the influx of casualties.
Numerous further striking inconsistencies exist in the accounts of the alleged attack by Saleyha Ahsan and Ian Pannell.
[3] Hallam, who is of Syrian heritage, describes an exchange with a sixteen year old female victim, presumably conducted in Arabic:
She took a deep breath and asked me, ‘Do you think my face is going to be mutilated?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I hope not.’ She said: ‘All I was trying to do was study for my exams. I was just trying to do my baccalaureate because I want to be like you. I want to be a doctor.’”
Describing what is clearly the same incident a month later in The Independent Dr Ahsan claims that the girl’s question about her face was addressed in English to her (Dr Ahsan):
One girl spoke to me in English. I was humbled by her efforts despite her terrible pain. “How bad is my face, ukhti?” Her mother cried by her side. The girl, composed and calm but in obvious pain asked. “Do you think they can fix my face?” She continued in Arabic, speaking to Dr Rola Hallam my fellow British colleague, who is of Syrian origin. “I was just at school studying… because I want to be like you – a doctor to help people.”
Compounding the contradictions, in a BMJ blog post published the next day Ahsan attributes the question about the girl’s face to the child’s mother rather than to the girl herself.
[4] The NBC article is also notable in claiming that NBC News’ Richard Engel had spoken to a female victim of the alleged attack. However the words attributed to the woman appear to have been lifted from a YouTube video. Serious questions over NBC’s reporting of stories involving Engel have previously arisen.
[5] There is a six hour range in accounts of the time of the alleged attack.
[6] As deduced from the following Facebook posts.
(a) Iessa Obied outside Hotel Liwan, Antakia, Turkey. Upload date 25 August 2013.
(b) Iessa with his older brother, Atareb Hospital’s then Medical Director Abdulrahman Obied, in the restaurant-bar of Hotel Liwan. Upload date 26 August 2013, the day of the alleged napalm attack and subsequent treatment of alleged victims at Atareb Hospital as portrayed in Saving Syria’s Children.
(c) Abdulrahman Obied (second right) and other Atareb Hospital staff members “attending a battle first aid training course in Antakia, Turkey” in a post (subsequently deleted) uploaded to Atareb Hospital’s Facebook page on 26 August 2013, the date of the alleged napalm attack. Missing from this photo is Iessa Obied, who perhaps took the picture).
(d) Abdulrahman Obied (second left) wearing same shirt as in image (c) participating in first aid training. Upload date 26 August 2013.
(e) Iessa Obied (red t-shirt) participating in first aid training. While the upload date is 29 August 2013, Iessa Obied’s t-shirt is the same as in image (b), the man immediately above Iessa (another Atareb employee) is wearing the same shirt as in image (c) and the man second left is wearing the same checked shirt as in image (d). As images (b), (c) and (d) were uploaded to separate Facebook accounts on 26 August 2013 the strong likelihood is that they were all taken on that date – the day of the battle first aid training course – and that the above image was also taken on 26 August 2013 but was uploaded to Facebook by Iessa Obied three days later.
(f) Iessa Obied on the Orontes River bridge, Antakya. Upload date 26 August 2013.
Further undermining Iessa Obied’s first-hand account of his supposed actions at Atareb Hospital on 26 August 2013 is the fact that he does not appear among the medics and orderlies attending to alleged casualties during the relevant sequences in Saving Syria’s Children (from 30:38).
Interestingly, it would appear that virtually the entire staff team of Atareb Hospital was substituted between two sequences in Saving Syria’s Children. During Drs Hallam and Ahsan’s first visit to the hospital (from 05:47 to 08:22 in the programme) Atareb’s Medical Director Abdulrahman Obied is filmed speaking with Dr Hallam and the medic far left in (c) above is also glimpsed.
However, of the many medics and orderlies who are filmed at the hospital a few days later on 26 August 2013 during the alleged crisis sequences (from 30:38), only one is clearly identifiable from the earlier section of the programme.
[7] The Charity Commission found that the images did “not raise sufficient regulatory concern”.
[8] Obied has also posted an affectionate photograph of himself with former freelance Reuters photographer Amer Alfaj. Alfaj has been photographed attending the firing of a “Hell cannon” mortar and has posted images celebrating the munition, some including small children.
[9] In the Human Rights Watch report cited by The Huffington Post, Saleyha Ahsan states that fifteen year old Anas Said Ali “died two weeks later from complications caused by the severe burns”. This contradicts both the Violations Documentation Centre in Syria, whose list of casualties states that Anas Said Ali (Anas al-Sayed Ali) died on 26 August 2013, the day of the alleged attack, and the BBC, which in complaints correspondence stated that Said Ali died “a few days later in hospital in Turkey”.
[10] Two more recent relevant observations.
I’m a US board certified MD. My jaw dropped when I saw the burn victims walking like zombies. A impartial medical investigation should be launched into this incident, especially that there were 2 MDs present. One of them had the time to talk to the reporters, really?
— Art Peace #Tulsi2020 (@theart4peace) May 7, 2019
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As I keep saying ad nauseam but everyone refuses to pick up on it, THEY TELL US WHAT THEY’RE UP TO with DELIBERATE ANOMALIES – the Syrian chemical attacks story is obviously full of them – you simply cannot explain these anomalies by “screwups” or anything else – there is nothing else to explain them.
Swedish staged event analyst, Ole Dammegard, says he was informed by an insider that the power elite justify their hoaxing of us by telling us with signs including the types of anomalies in the above story and all kinds of others. They reason that by telling us with their “signs” the onus is shifted to us to call them out and if we don’t they’re spared karmic repercussions. Apparently, they take this very, very seriously. Not to mention it makes it easier to involve all those required to play a role – “well, we’re really telling them with the ludicrousness of our story so it’s not such a bad thing we’re doing + whatever lame agenda” … and not to mention they can derive so much amusement from the ridiculousness, eg, the nose cone of the second plane popping out the other side of the South Tower on 9/11. I can just imagine all the knee slapping that goes on. And doesn’t it just show the power of power? They can feed us anything at all and we just sit there and swallow it, regardless of what heights of the Emperor’s New Clothes it reaches … and get all completely wound up about the wrong thing. They didn’t use 9/11 as an excuse, they created it.
It doesn’t matter that you may think this utterly ridiculous and incomprehensible – I completely agree it is – but the evidence supports its reality beyond all reasonable doubt and the above is just one example. This phenomenon is also referred to as “revelation of the method”.
Please, Off-Guardian readers and editors, the Syrian chemical attacks are just one item on a long and broad continuum that starts at least as far back as the Pearl Harbour bombing (bombing real but in an evacuated area) and includes the 1980 Bologna station, 9/11 and the 2017 Mogadishu bombings (staged like PH) and many, many, many other events, including small-scale non-terror-related ones. This revelation of the method could go back centuries or even millennia. Who knows?
For those who believe that Christchurch was a real event, in the words of Pauline Hanson, please explain:
Terror attack survivor who was shot nine times had to tell victim’s parents of death
—9 bullets and looking good as gold
—wearing of compression garments for bullet wounds
—alleged bullet wound scar that looks easily at least a year old and shows a sock mark over it
Christchurch Shootings: What Really Happened
—signs of bullet on teeth
—obviously photoshopped scar on arm
—old scar on leg
This is a great story and very comprehensively researched. But, most people will not even get past the second paragraph. They don’t care enough about anything any more. The release of this film will help, but, like the Assange arrest and incarceration, the rubes don’t even know what they want for tea or what to watch on TV tonight, let alone imbibe and collate this sort of fantastic investigative journalism..still, go and donate anyway..
A bit OT, but I see the OPCW technical report has an airing on MoA today – Douma was faked. Well, whadyaknow…
Brilliant exposé of BBC mendacity by independent (crowd-funded) reporter Graham Phillips
Never having considered this story before now, it has taken several hours to get my head around it and follow all the links and dig around the dramatic personae. I cannot thank Robert Stuart enough for his integrity, industry, eloquence and courage. Kudos too to Keith Allen and Victor Lewis-Smith (VLS).
But where does this all lead? Panorama has been outed as a BBC propaganda weapon, but at whose behest? If we then link back to the BBC 9/11 prophesying the collapse of WTC7 i.e. 20 minutes before the event, then what links these two psy-ops? Who is really running the show? It certainly cannot be the PM supposed leader of HMG because both Blair and May would be out on their ears if auditioning for RADA, though they are manifestly superior to the ventriloquist’s dummy, GWB. (And we used to think B-movie actor Ronnie Ray-gun was bad!).
In the course of reminding myself who VLS was, I was transported back to the Jonathon Ross (JR) show of 1991. VLS was not particularly funny, but JR made a reference to his previous guest, Oliver North,, so I had to watch that too: JR incisively put this clown on the spot about his supposed Christian values, but could not penetrate the self-righteousness of this God-appointed scourge of Communism. But I have digressed…
Who runs the Propaganda (aka BBC) if not HMG? Is it the CIA or MI6 or is there any difference between the two? And then who runs the CIA/MI6/5-Eyes? It is quite obvious here in NZ that out lovely PM hasn’t a clue about Foreign Policy and that her deputy, Winston Peters, is now a CIA puppet (though he wasn’t always). The most worrying aspect of this line of inquiry is that intellectual & moral pygmies like Bolton & Pompeo (nice Ampersands!) would seem to believe their own Propaganda. I detest the morally repugnant Winston Churchill, but I suspect he at least knew the difference between truth and lies, whereas those currently in charge do not. This is a source of worry, because the same ideology (ergo not thinking) seems to apply to every hierarchy – be it DNC, State, JCS, Pentagon, CIA, NSA, BfB (OK, I lied about the last one: that’s Bullshit for Brains). I have digressed again.
It is patently obvious that BBC/ABC reporter Ian Pannell is a very dodgy character (is the American or British?) but the whole organisation around him is just as crooked. I think it is Keith Allen who says that now that we know this, we have a responsibility to act. Think about that: if GWB & Co could create the False Flag of 9/11 killing 3,00o occupants – and all those First Responders – in order to wage illegal wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Yemen, Somalia (Lebanon and Iran next?) then how many innocents have been murdered by our supposed leaders? We cannot now un-know these truths, and have to make our voices heard. I was thinking about Propaganda and why it even exists: why bother? Why not just act as a psychopathic amoral murderer and fuck everyone? Maybe, just maybe, they fear that one day the flock might rise against the wolves? Well unless the Earth that the Meek will inherit be a radio-active desert. (Caractacus: You create a desert and call it Peace). It’s time the meek became less meek. As the great James Larkin said: “The great only appear great because we are on our knees. Let us rise”.
There is something egalitarian in the Celtic inheritance, and so I value the words by John F. Kennedy: “We all live on the same small planet. We breathe the same air. We cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
The Spook organisations have been “monitoring” all senior appointments at the BBC since at least the early 80s. Probably long before that. The previous Director of the BBC, Mark Thompson, was a fanatical Zionist who held private meetings with Netanyahu where he promised him that no criticism of Israel would ever appear on the BBC.
Thank you Robert for your tireless efforts exposing yet more lies from the apparently honest, really trustworthy media. BBC, ABC here in Australia, The Guardian, The Australian, MSNBC, New York Times, take your pick, dosn’t matter, coz they’re all busy defending the glorious Empire and Imperialist plunder and butchery. Oh, and as for The Huffington Post and Human Rights Watch…. As dodgy as a Hong Kong rolex. So much fakery and lies and newspeak about these days. Was it this blatant 35 years ago?
I’m only surprised that anyone feels the need to spend much time documenting the transparent lies of the state controlled BBC propaganda mouthpiece in any great detail at all. Their lies are glaringly obvious for anyone with two brain cells to run together. You’d think that they could concoct some half convincing propaganda lies with £4 billion of taxpayers’ money.
Instead, we get this third rate garbage. A group of extras, standing in a room waiting patiently for their cue. Then, on cue, they suddenly all start moaning and groaning and lurching around like the demented zombies in Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Then they stop to confirm the approval of their director, and start up again shortly after. Another extra, posing as a corpse wrapped in a sheet, gets bored and starts scratching his nose and yawning. This wouldn’t pass muster at he most third rate amateur dramatic production. The whole thing degenerates into broad farce after the first ten seconds.
This is all absolutely bog standard for the lying presstitute media hacks at the BBC. They are always being caught out lying and fabricating material. This goes way beyond the normal bias and distortion and lying by omission. Here are just a few relevant media lies. There are literally scores of others.
1. Footage of dead Arab civilians “murdered by the evil dictator Assad.”
This was actually stock footage of Iraqis killed in the invasion of 2003.
2. Large street demonstrations in Damascus, “protesting against the evil Assad.”
This was a mass PRO GOVERNMENT demonstration.
3. People celebrating in the street, “Libyans celebrating the overthrow of Gaddafi.”
This was actually a group of Indians celebrating some kind of religious festival.
4. “People in Moscow demonstrating against the tyrannical rule of Putin.”
This was taken in Athens, Greeks protesting about EU austerity policies.
5. “Tibetans rioting against oppressive Chinese rule.”
Again, this was taken in India. Indians rioting over some religious issue about a temple.
All this is ten a penny now. It’s surprisingly crude and unsophisticated.
Your point 1. It wasn’t “stock footage”. It was a photo taken by Italian photojournalist Marco di Lauro, and it was indeed taken in Iraq in 2003.
The BBC published it on the front page of their website on 27th May 2012 under the headline “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”. They credited the photo to an “activist”. When they were caught with their pants on fire (di Lauro himself saw the story and his photo on the BBC website and complained) the story simply “disappeared”. No explanation, no apology, nothing.
The Telegraph has a full report on the story (published the same day), with a screen grab of the BBC page. It is well worth reading.
I have seen all of Robert Stuart’s presentations part of Media on Trial. Frome, London and quite literally in a tent in the grounds of a Shia mosque in Leeds. (the lengths the Oliver Kam’s of this world to ban this event in Leeds speaks volumes) You do need to watch these things more than once to believe what you are seeing.
Stuart is one of half of dozen experts which make Media on Trial a great event. So I would certainly encourage anyone with a tenner to spare to put this to this great cause.
Robert’s a classic British bulldog over this scam: he just won’t let go! All power to your continuing grip on it, Robert. And great respect, as ever: A courageous beacon of honesty in a society soused in institutionalised cheating, dishonesty, and outright criminality. Obviously, the thoroughly-indoctrinated propagandists at the BBC are never going to admit that their crew faked this scam. But I think that, by now, it’s clear to any actually-honest, impartial, open-minded onlooker that a clear case is made: this was a politically-motivated scam to shock public opinion, on the eve of a crucial vote in the British parliament on whether to join a military attack on Syria by the US gangsters – for the usual dirty, low, and indescribably criminal reapolitikal reasons. Absolutely nothing to do with the loftily-pretended motives of protecting basic human rights and re-establishing democracy.
Things on a knife edge it seems with the Syria narratives.
The OPCW leak seems like the most significant episode yet in this sordid affair, and you have to wonder where things will go from here.
I hope that the revelations about Douma are accepted and lead to a widescale opening up of the whole propaganda apparatus, including Salisbury and that element which interfaced with the BBC in these absurd scenes.
All strength to Robert amd his work. May the bravery and determination of Bartlett, Beeley and the working gtoup on Syria be finally, fully recognised.
http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/assessment-by-the-engineering-sub-team-of-the-opcw-fact-finding-mission-investigating-the-alleged-chemical-attack-in-douma-in-april-2018
We’re seeing a rerun of the same tired old material now as the western taxpayer sponsored head choppers and throat slitters are finally being cleared out of Idlib. I’m half expecting our old favourite Bana to be resurrected at any moment.
..or Iran will make all this lost in the blood red mist.
By that I meant the Iran situation, not the falsely alleged actions of the country.