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The article has two sources, one which identifies this attack as sarin, the other as pool cleaner "CL17". Which was it?
Also, what chemical is CL17? I have not been able to identify any reliable source that actually provides a name, chemical formula, link to a MSDS, etc (all of which would be readily available for a chemical or formulation in pool cleaner). VQuakr ( talk) 09:07, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
The whole article is based on the September Russian Foreign Ministry statement on their website, regarding the march incident. Providing only the alleged evidence in Russian statement, which they claim to submit in July. Ignoring the counter points in the same article. Ignoring earlier articles which provided statements and analysis contradict their findings. overall the tone of the article is POV. Also the UN already ruled on the this incident in July [1] so at the very best this is "The Syrian government asked the United Nations to investigate,[4] and it was during this investigation that the much larger-scale 2013 Ghouta attacks took place on 21 August." violation of WP:SYN. -- PLNR ( talk) 13:43, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the additions - but it would be a lot more helpful if they didn't largely consist of badly-edited copyright violations (copied from the news sources). I've fixed most of the resulting mess. I removed the Guthrie fluff and Zanders mistake as it was a copyright violation and you failed to respond to my comments about them above. Podiaebba ( talk) 23:27, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
PLNR - You have written in the lead that "Both Syrian government, US and Russia submitted evidence to the UN." Besides the slightly faulty grammar :), as far as I know, only Russia has submitted evidence to the UN about this attack. Do you have any references for the US and Syria having submitted evidence? Hulahoop122 ( talk) 08:08, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
This restructuring by PNLR is extremely and obviously POV. It makes a complete mess of the article apparently with the sole objective of downplaying the Russian investigation by placing it on a par with both immediate reaction to the incident and desk-based speculation which doesn't even involve access to the Russian report. The previous structure is far superior, and whatever concerns PNLR and others might have should be accommodated within it. Podiaebba ( talk) 10:04, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Surely some independent observer can see what a complete and utter mess the restructuring has made - there is no concrete distinction between "Incident", "Versions" and "Analyses" - it's just a shapeless mishmash of contradictory views which rejects all sense of how all sides' views have changed and how evidence has developed in favour of trying to say (as much as any structure can) "nothing matters but the UN analysis". I may share that sentiment, but I deeply object to making a complete hash of what had been a clear and well-structured article in order to promote it. Podiaebba ( talk) 19:52, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Podiaebba, I want to thank you for taking the initiative for creating this article. I found it disappointing that for so long no article existed about this significant attack. I thought your original article was good. But as the article got longer I think that it did make sense to create separate different claims about the attack into different sections (which I think was done by PLNR). The "Incident" section describes the first reporting. The "Versions" section describes the first claims made by the parties involved. The "Analyses" section reflects analysis done by outside experts. Having it all together would be a mishmash. I think this actually provides more structure. Hulahoop122 ( talk) 22:44, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
I think that this article is in pretty good shape. Would those of you involved in working on and reviewing this article agree that we can remove the "The neutrality of this article is disputed" header? Hulahoop122 ( talk) 21:24, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
[3], [4], [5]. A Syrian defector says he has additional documentation showing Syria's culpability in the attacks. I am not sure if this is reliable enough to add to the article though - Reuters has picked it up, but his documents do not seem to have been made public yet. Thoughts? VQuakr ( talk) 03:41, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
I agree that he is neither reliable nor notable enough to include in the article, nor has he made his documents public in the weeks since his announcement. Hulahoop122 ( talk) 20:46, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Under the UN Investigation section there is the following sentence and 'unreliable source' tag; "There were also disputes over access to Syrian military sites and the exclusion of Russian and Chinese investigators from the UN team.[23][unreliable source?]"
I think that Russian Today is considered a reliable, although biased, source. I could not find the claim that there was a dispute over the exclusion of Russian and Chinese investigators, however, being made in any other reliable news source. I was going to rewrite this sentence to attribute the claim specifically to RT, but in investigating this more I found that the UN barred experts from ALL of the security council permanent members (US, France, Britain, Russia, and China) from being part of the inquiry team. See this AFP article; http://www.vivelohoy.com/loultimo/2013/03/un-excludes-major-powers-from-syria-chemical-arms-inquiry-4/ Therefor, I think that making this claim, in isolation, about a dispute of Russian and Chinese experts being excluded is somewhat misleading.
I was going to edit that claim out, but I wanted to give people a chance to discuss it here first. Hulahoop122 ( talk) 20:37, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
In May, Carla Del Ponte, an investigator for the UN "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria" investigating human rights abuses in Syria, stated that the evidence she had seen lead her to the preliminary conclusion that the opposition forces had use chemical weapons in Khan Al-Assal. Her evidence seemed to be based on interviews with victims and doctors who were outside of Syria. [8] [9]
In response the "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria" officially stated that it was too early to make any conclusions. [10]
Should her claims be incorporated into the article? Do you put her claims on the same level of notability and credibility as Abdeltawwab Shahrour (above), in relation to Assad government responsibility? Do you think they are more or less credible? Should they both be included in the article? Should they both be excluded? Hulahoop122 ( talk) 22:28, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Eribaeko, thanks for all of your work on this article. The timeline you created is helpful.
I noticed that you have been working on the "Incident" portion of the article, and added the following sentences, which I have removed; "Samples taken at the impact site showed, according to Russian experts, that the object was an unguided rocket of the Basha'ir-3 type. The analysis clearly showed that the shell[15] was not factory made and proved that the sarin was not industrially manufactured.[16]"
This section has been used to put basic information that all parties agree too. The Russian report belongs in the "Analyses" section, where it is already extensively discussed. Also, I don't know of any source referring to the delivery device as a "shell", and the link you provide merely shows one of the photographs of the device remains, which is not a proper citation. Cheers, Hulahoop122 ( talk) 03:00, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
The referenced NOW article, Where the UN Inspectors won't be going, claims that “there are several glaring omissions in most news reports about the UN mission, and about the Khan al-Assal attack, that would stand as evidence that the Assad/Putin alliance is lying”.
The problem with that statement is that the author, James Miller, draws his conclusions on several fact errors:
Should we allow an article, with so many fact errors, to be used as a reference? Erlbaeko ( talk) 09:29, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
In my opinion the NOW article has too many fact errors to be considered a reliable source. The reference and the text which is based on it should therefore be removed. Regarding the sarin and the 'unique hallmarks'; I do believe we agree that the two attacks most likely had the same perpetrators. Erlbaeko ( talk) 16:33, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
07:00: A small rocket landed in the southern part of Khan al-Asal. The rocket released sarin gas on its impact. The gas drifted southwest with the wind. [1]
11:45: Press TV, published a breaking news article about the attack. [2]
11:50: RT, published its first article about the attack. [3]
12:17: Al Arabiya posted the first tweet about a Scud missile hitting Khan al-Asal. [4]
12:32: [5] SANA published an Arabic article with video and images from the attack. [6]
References
Ref. old revision Erlbaeko ( talk) 09:01, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
Sayerslle, I rewrote the lead to take out a confusing reference to an unrelated suspected chemical attack in Aleppo, and to restructure the sentences into more standard English. I did this a while ago, and I noticed that you reverted my changes. You accused me of pushing a POV by using the word “experts” (used by Reuters), and in this rewrite I have used the word “specialists” instead. I hope you find that an agreeable compromise. If you look at the history of my edits on the Syrian conflict, I don’t think you will find that I have ever pushed an anti-opposition POV. If you have a problem with a certain phrase or term, can we discuss it here, rather than revert the whole thing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hulahoop122 ( talk • contribs) 02:07, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
I notice that the editor Jiofrax has edited the article to delete the UN finding that the the perpetrators of the sarin attack likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military. In the edit section he justifies the deletion by stating that the statement relates to the Ghouta attack, and not the Khan al-Assal attack. I believe this is a mistake. The February/March UN report is about human right violations in Syria in general, and there is a section on Chemical weapons which I have cut and pasted below (paragraph 128 is key):
It seems clear to me that the report writers are claiming that the Khan A-Assal sarin bore the same unique hallmarks as the sarin used in Al-Ghouta, and that they believe that both came from military stockpiles. That last part was not repeated in the last sentence solely because to do so would have been redundant.
Does anyone disagree with that reading? Hulahoop122 ( talk) 22:18, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
My edit also notes that the UN HRC report's assertion (2) about "unique hallmarks" can only be based on a comparison of the OPCW analyses of sarin from Ghouta with the Russian analyses of sarin from Khan-al-Assal. It's left for the reader to note that this implies that the UN HRC report accepts the validity of the Russian chemical analyses but not the Russian conclusions about the source of the sarin. Jiofrax ( talk) 15:29, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
Vqakr: thanks for fixing the embedded links. Can you explain why you consider the passage about Basha'ir al-Nasr brigade and its video of rocket manufacturing irrelevant to this article? The Russian report claimed that the rocket used in this attack matched those made by this group. It's clearly relevant that five days before the Russians produced this report, the Basha'ir al-Nasr brigade had uploaded a video showing the manufacture of small rockets in their workshop. It's likely that the Russians simply matched the rocket remains in their possession to the rockets seen in this video. I left this point for the reader to infer, but it can be spelled out if you think that's appropriate. The twitter account is relevant only in that it authenticates the video as from Basha'ir al-Nasr. Jiofrax ( talk) 08:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Jiofrax: I removed the text you added regarding the Basha'ir al-Nasr Brigade. The TheInterpreter article written by James Miller contains several fact errors (similar errors are examined here), and therefore I do not see it as a reliable source. Nor is blogger Eliot Higgins comments a reliable source by the Wikipedia standard (ref. WP:USERGENERATED).
Regarding the Basha'ir al-Nasr Brigade. A group with that name was fighting in the countryside west of Aleppo in 2012/2013. This video shows them after the Khan al-Asal Police Academy, located 3 km southwest of Khan al-Assal, was captured by the rebels in early March 2013 (and this video taken at 36°09′16″N 37°00′36″E / 36.1545328°N 37.0100722°E). The name of their Facebook account indicate that they came from Idlib. However, it is unclear whether this group is connected to the group in Deir ez-Zor or not. The logo they use in their videos indicates that they are affiliated with the Ansar Brigade of the 19th Division. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erlbaeko ( talk • contribs) 11:37, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I removed the paragraphs in the Russian investigation section that described (in great detail) the chemical process by which the sarin used in the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo Japan subway attack was derived. I did this for several reasons. The section was hard to follow, its significance not clear, and most significantly it's connection to the Khan al-assal attack is unsupported by external citations. The first part described the sarin used by Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. It is then claimed that the sarin used in Khan al-assal was similar to that used in Syria, but there is no external citation to support this. (I believe that the anonymous "WhoGouta" blog was earlier used in this section as a reference to support the connection, but it was generally agreed that an anonymous blog was not a sufficiently valid source.) Hulahoop122 ( talk) 01:50, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi Volunteer Marek, I reverted your removal of the text related to the Russian investigation from the incident section. I do not agree with your rasonale for removal. Imo RT is a WP:RS for this info. Please, also make yourself familiar with this discussion. Regards. Erlbaeko ( talk) 10:24, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
" it was already established here that RT is neither universally reliable or unreliable" - No. You are misrepresenting the discussion. What was established there is that RT is not reliable in general although there might be some limited circumstances, where the text is uncontroversial, where it might be. This isn't the case here.
If there's no consensus that RT is reliable then you can't use it to source controversial stuff. So please keep this junk out. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 18:04, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Kudzu1, you removed the text shown in bold below together with two references as "rm contentious Russian claim given undue weight; rm RT as there is no consensus to use it on this page". Ref. diff.
Incident
The incident took place in the early morning of 19 March 2013. Between seven and half past seven, an object filled with sarin landed in Khan al-Asal. [1] Samples taken at the impact site showed, according to a Russian investigation report delivered 9 July to the UN, that the object was a modified unguided rocket and that the rocket's warhead and the sarin it contained were not industrially manufactured. [2] [3] The rocket landed near a living quarter with farming areas around the houses, and released sarin gas on its impact. The gas drifted southwest with the wind into the Haret al-Mazar neighborhood, wounded 124 persons and killed 20 along with an unspecified number of animals. [1] Several witnesses reported seeing people scratching their bodies and observed people lying in the streets. Some of the wounded were unconscious; some had convulsions and foamed from the mouth and some complained of vision problems. [1]
Local civilians and Syrian army personnel rescued and evacuated those affected to six hospitals in the area, mainly the University Hospital in Aleppo. According to witness statements given to the UN investigation team, first responders were exposed to contamination from the chemical rocket. [1] A Reuters photographer was quoted as saying that he had visited victims in Aleppo hospitals and that they had breathing problems; he also said that people had told him that the air smelled of chlorine after the attack. [4] [5]
References
Firstly, can you clarify why you believe the Russian claim is given undue weight? Erlbaeko ( talk) 20:03, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
This quotation can be verified by watching the video in the source. It was removed by Volunteer Marek on 26 May 2015. Ref. diff. Why was it removed? Erlbaeko ( talk) 13:55, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
If the [U.N.] secretary agrees, the evidence can be made public. It is conclusive, and I think it will eliminate a lot of question.
— Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on a media conference 10 July 2013 [1]
References
Volunteer Marek, I rewrote [20] the statement to:
The next day, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said it was up to the U.N. to decide if the evidence should be made public or not. [1]
References
You reverted me again, [21] together with six of my latest edits to the page, (ref. [22]) only stating that they are "undue" and based on "unreliable sources". Ref. Difference between revisions Do you have a problem with the statement in this form? (Please, see the video in the RT article to verify it.) Erlbaeko ( talk) 13:15, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Volunteer Marek, you removed this statement from the timeline: Ref. diff.
The Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin delivered a report with analysis of the samples taken at the site of the chemical attack, to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. [1]
References
In your edit summary, you only stated that it was "undue" and/or based on "unreliable sources". Do you have a specific problem with this particular edit? Erlbaeko ( talk) 16:56, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
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The article has two sources, one which identifies this attack as sarin, the other as pool cleaner "CL17". Which was it?
Also, what chemical is CL17? I have not been able to identify any reliable source that actually provides a name, chemical formula, link to a MSDS, etc (all of which would be readily available for a chemical or formulation in pool cleaner). VQuakr ( talk) 09:07, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
The whole article is based on the September Russian Foreign Ministry statement on their website, regarding the march incident. Providing only the alleged evidence in Russian statement, which they claim to submit in July. Ignoring the counter points in the same article. Ignoring earlier articles which provided statements and analysis contradict their findings. overall the tone of the article is POV. Also the UN already ruled on the this incident in July [1] so at the very best this is "The Syrian government asked the United Nations to investigate,[4] and it was during this investigation that the much larger-scale 2013 Ghouta attacks took place on 21 August." violation of WP:SYN. -- PLNR ( talk) 13:43, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the additions - but it would be a lot more helpful if they didn't largely consist of badly-edited copyright violations (copied from the news sources). I've fixed most of the resulting mess. I removed the Guthrie fluff and Zanders mistake as it was a copyright violation and you failed to respond to my comments about them above. Podiaebba ( talk) 23:27, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
PLNR - You have written in the lead that "Both Syrian government, US and Russia submitted evidence to the UN." Besides the slightly faulty grammar :), as far as I know, only Russia has submitted evidence to the UN about this attack. Do you have any references for the US and Syria having submitted evidence? Hulahoop122 ( talk) 08:08, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
This restructuring by PNLR is extremely and obviously POV. It makes a complete mess of the article apparently with the sole objective of downplaying the Russian investigation by placing it on a par with both immediate reaction to the incident and desk-based speculation which doesn't even involve access to the Russian report. The previous structure is far superior, and whatever concerns PNLR and others might have should be accommodated within it. Podiaebba ( talk) 10:04, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Surely some independent observer can see what a complete and utter mess the restructuring has made - there is no concrete distinction between "Incident", "Versions" and "Analyses" - it's just a shapeless mishmash of contradictory views which rejects all sense of how all sides' views have changed and how evidence has developed in favour of trying to say (as much as any structure can) "nothing matters but the UN analysis". I may share that sentiment, but I deeply object to making a complete hash of what had been a clear and well-structured article in order to promote it. Podiaebba ( talk) 19:52, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
Podiaebba, I want to thank you for taking the initiative for creating this article. I found it disappointing that for so long no article existed about this significant attack. I thought your original article was good. But as the article got longer I think that it did make sense to create separate different claims about the attack into different sections (which I think was done by PLNR). The "Incident" section describes the first reporting. The "Versions" section describes the first claims made by the parties involved. The "Analyses" section reflects analysis done by outside experts. Having it all together would be a mishmash. I think this actually provides more structure. Hulahoop122 ( talk) 22:44, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
I think that this article is in pretty good shape. Would those of you involved in working on and reviewing this article agree that we can remove the "The neutrality of this article is disputed" header? Hulahoop122 ( talk) 21:24, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
[3], [4], [5]. A Syrian defector says he has additional documentation showing Syria's culpability in the attacks. I am not sure if this is reliable enough to add to the article though - Reuters has picked it up, but his documents do not seem to have been made public yet. Thoughts? VQuakr ( talk) 03:41, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
I agree that he is neither reliable nor notable enough to include in the article, nor has he made his documents public in the weeks since his announcement. Hulahoop122 ( talk) 20:46, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Under the UN Investigation section there is the following sentence and 'unreliable source' tag; "There were also disputes over access to Syrian military sites and the exclusion of Russian and Chinese investigators from the UN team.[23][unreliable source?]"
I think that Russian Today is considered a reliable, although biased, source. I could not find the claim that there was a dispute over the exclusion of Russian and Chinese investigators, however, being made in any other reliable news source. I was going to rewrite this sentence to attribute the claim specifically to RT, but in investigating this more I found that the UN barred experts from ALL of the security council permanent members (US, France, Britain, Russia, and China) from being part of the inquiry team. See this AFP article; http://www.vivelohoy.com/loultimo/2013/03/un-excludes-major-powers-from-syria-chemical-arms-inquiry-4/ Therefor, I think that making this claim, in isolation, about a dispute of Russian and Chinese experts being excluded is somewhat misleading.
I was going to edit that claim out, but I wanted to give people a chance to discuss it here first. Hulahoop122 ( talk) 20:37, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
In May, Carla Del Ponte, an investigator for the UN "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria" investigating human rights abuses in Syria, stated that the evidence she had seen lead her to the preliminary conclusion that the opposition forces had use chemical weapons in Khan Al-Assal. Her evidence seemed to be based on interviews with victims and doctors who were outside of Syria. [8] [9]
In response the "Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria" officially stated that it was too early to make any conclusions. [10]
Should her claims be incorporated into the article? Do you put her claims on the same level of notability and credibility as Abdeltawwab Shahrour (above), in relation to Assad government responsibility? Do you think they are more or less credible? Should they both be included in the article? Should they both be excluded? Hulahoop122 ( talk) 22:28, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Eribaeko, thanks for all of your work on this article. The timeline you created is helpful.
I noticed that you have been working on the "Incident" portion of the article, and added the following sentences, which I have removed; "Samples taken at the impact site showed, according to Russian experts, that the object was an unguided rocket of the Basha'ir-3 type. The analysis clearly showed that the shell[15] was not factory made and proved that the sarin was not industrially manufactured.[16]"
This section has been used to put basic information that all parties agree too. The Russian report belongs in the "Analyses" section, where it is already extensively discussed. Also, I don't know of any source referring to the delivery device as a "shell", and the link you provide merely shows one of the photographs of the device remains, which is not a proper citation. Cheers, Hulahoop122 ( talk) 03:00, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
The referenced NOW article, Where the UN Inspectors won't be going, claims that “there are several glaring omissions in most news reports about the UN mission, and about the Khan al-Assal attack, that would stand as evidence that the Assad/Putin alliance is lying”.
The problem with that statement is that the author, James Miller, draws his conclusions on several fact errors:
Should we allow an article, with so many fact errors, to be used as a reference? Erlbaeko ( talk) 09:29, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
In my opinion the NOW article has too many fact errors to be considered a reliable source. The reference and the text which is based on it should therefore be removed. Regarding the sarin and the 'unique hallmarks'; I do believe we agree that the two attacks most likely had the same perpetrators. Erlbaeko ( talk) 16:33, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
07:00: A small rocket landed in the southern part of Khan al-Asal. The rocket released sarin gas on its impact. The gas drifted southwest with the wind. [1]
11:45: Press TV, published a breaking news article about the attack. [2]
11:50: RT, published its first article about the attack. [3]
12:17: Al Arabiya posted the first tweet about a Scud missile hitting Khan al-Asal. [4]
12:32: [5] SANA published an Arabic article with video and images from the attack. [6]
References
Ref. old revision Erlbaeko ( talk) 09:01, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
Sayerslle, I rewrote the lead to take out a confusing reference to an unrelated suspected chemical attack in Aleppo, and to restructure the sentences into more standard English. I did this a while ago, and I noticed that you reverted my changes. You accused me of pushing a POV by using the word “experts” (used by Reuters), and in this rewrite I have used the word “specialists” instead. I hope you find that an agreeable compromise. If you look at the history of my edits on the Syrian conflict, I don’t think you will find that I have ever pushed an anti-opposition POV. If you have a problem with a certain phrase or term, can we discuss it here, rather than revert the whole thing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hulahoop122 ( talk • contribs) 02:07, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
I notice that the editor Jiofrax has edited the article to delete the UN finding that the the perpetrators of the sarin attack likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military. In the edit section he justifies the deletion by stating that the statement relates to the Ghouta attack, and not the Khan al-Assal attack. I believe this is a mistake. The February/March UN report is about human right violations in Syria in general, and there is a section on Chemical weapons which I have cut and pasted below (paragraph 128 is key):
It seems clear to me that the report writers are claiming that the Khan A-Assal sarin bore the same unique hallmarks as the sarin used in Al-Ghouta, and that they believe that both came from military stockpiles. That last part was not repeated in the last sentence solely because to do so would have been redundant.
Does anyone disagree with that reading? Hulahoop122 ( talk) 22:18, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
My edit also notes that the UN HRC report's assertion (2) about "unique hallmarks" can only be based on a comparison of the OPCW analyses of sarin from Ghouta with the Russian analyses of sarin from Khan-al-Assal. It's left for the reader to note that this implies that the UN HRC report accepts the validity of the Russian chemical analyses but not the Russian conclusions about the source of the sarin. Jiofrax ( talk) 15:29, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
Vqakr: thanks for fixing the embedded links. Can you explain why you consider the passage about Basha'ir al-Nasr brigade and its video of rocket manufacturing irrelevant to this article? The Russian report claimed that the rocket used in this attack matched those made by this group. It's clearly relevant that five days before the Russians produced this report, the Basha'ir al-Nasr brigade had uploaded a video showing the manufacture of small rockets in their workshop. It's likely that the Russians simply matched the rocket remains in their possession to the rockets seen in this video. I left this point for the reader to infer, but it can be spelled out if you think that's appropriate. The twitter account is relevant only in that it authenticates the video as from Basha'ir al-Nasr. Jiofrax ( talk) 08:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Jiofrax: I removed the text you added regarding the Basha'ir al-Nasr Brigade. The TheInterpreter article written by James Miller contains several fact errors (similar errors are examined here), and therefore I do not see it as a reliable source. Nor is blogger Eliot Higgins comments a reliable source by the Wikipedia standard (ref. WP:USERGENERATED).
Regarding the Basha'ir al-Nasr Brigade. A group with that name was fighting in the countryside west of Aleppo in 2012/2013. This video shows them after the Khan al-Asal Police Academy, located 3 km southwest of Khan al-Assal, was captured by the rebels in early March 2013 (and this video taken at 36°09′16″N 37°00′36″E / 36.1545328°N 37.0100722°E). The name of their Facebook account indicate that they came from Idlib. However, it is unclear whether this group is connected to the group in Deir ez-Zor or not. The logo they use in their videos indicates that they are affiliated with the Ansar Brigade of the 19th Division. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Erlbaeko ( talk • contribs) 11:37, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I removed the paragraphs in the Russian investigation section that described (in great detail) the chemical process by which the sarin used in the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo Japan subway attack was derived. I did this for several reasons. The section was hard to follow, its significance not clear, and most significantly it's connection to the Khan al-assal attack is unsupported by external citations. The first part described the sarin used by Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. It is then claimed that the sarin used in Khan al-assal was similar to that used in Syria, but there is no external citation to support this. (I believe that the anonymous "WhoGouta" blog was earlier used in this section as a reference to support the connection, but it was generally agreed that an anonymous blog was not a sufficiently valid source.) Hulahoop122 ( talk) 01:50, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi Volunteer Marek, I reverted your removal of the text related to the Russian investigation from the incident section. I do not agree with your rasonale for removal. Imo RT is a WP:RS for this info. Please, also make yourself familiar with this discussion. Regards. Erlbaeko ( talk) 10:24, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
" it was already established here that RT is neither universally reliable or unreliable" - No. You are misrepresenting the discussion. What was established there is that RT is not reliable in general although there might be some limited circumstances, where the text is uncontroversial, where it might be. This isn't the case here.
If there's no consensus that RT is reliable then you can't use it to source controversial stuff. So please keep this junk out. Volunteer Marek ( talk) 18:04, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Kudzu1, you removed the text shown in bold below together with two references as "rm contentious Russian claim given undue weight; rm RT as there is no consensus to use it on this page". Ref. diff.
Incident
The incident took place in the early morning of 19 March 2013. Between seven and half past seven, an object filled with sarin landed in Khan al-Asal. [1] Samples taken at the impact site showed, according to a Russian investigation report delivered 9 July to the UN, that the object was a modified unguided rocket and that the rocket's warhead and the sarin it contained were not industrially manufactured. [2] [3] The rocket landed near a living quarter with farming areas around the houses, and released sarin gas on its impact. The gas drifted southwest with the wind into the Haret al-Mazar neighborhood, wounded 124 persons and killed 20 along with an unspecified number of animals. [1] Several witnesses reported seeing people scratching their bodies and observed people lying in the streets. Some of the wounded were unconscious; some had convulsions and foamed from the mouth and some complained of vision problems. [1]
Local civilians and Syrian army personnel rescued and evacuated those affected to six hospitals in the area, mainly the University Hospital in Aleppo. According to witness statements given to the UN investigation team, first responders were exposed to contamination from the chemical rocket. [1] A Reuters photographer was quoted as saying that he had visited victims in Aleppo hospitals and that they had breathing problems; he also said that people had told him that the air smelled of chlorine after the attack. [4] [5]
References
Firstly, can you clarify why you believe the Russian claim is given undue weight? Erlbaeko ( talk) 20:03, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
This quotation can be verified by watching the video in the source. It was removed by Volunteer Marek on 26 May 2015. Ref. diff. Why was it removed? Erlbaeko ( talk) 13:55, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
If the [U.N.] secretary agrees, the evidence can be made public. It is conclusive, and I think it will eliminate a lot of question.
— Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on a media conference 10 July 2013 [1]
References
Volunteer Marek, I rewrote [20] the statement to:
The next day, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said it was up to the U.N. to decide if the evidence should be made public or not. [1]
References
You reverted me again, [21] together with six of my latest edits to the page, (ref. [22]) only stating that they are "undue" and based on "unreliable sources". Ref. Difference between revisions Do you have a problem with the statement in this form? (Please, see the video in the RT article to verify it.) Erlbaeko ( talk) 13:15, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Volunteer Marek, you removed this statement from the timeline: Ref. diff.
The Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin delivered a report with analysis of the samples taken at the site of the chemical attack, to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. [1]
References
In your edit summary, you only stated that it was "undue" and/or based on "unreliable sources". Do you have a specific problem with this particular edit? Erlbaeko ( talk) 16:56, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
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