BBC Propaganda Fabrication Film "Napalm School"

[David Guyatt]

because of the large amount of images (which don't automatically get carried here when copying and pasting) are vital to the story, please simply visit the blog page for yourself and view the evidence - which for me is pretty conclusive.

Napalm bomb school located HERE.

[Magda Hassan]

Fabrication in BBC Panorama 'Saving Syria's Children'

Analysis of the 30 September 2013 BBC Panorama documentary 'Saving Syria's Children' and related BBC News reports, contending that sequences filmed by BBC personnel and others at Atareb Hospital, Aleppo on 26 August 2013 purporting to show the aftermath of an incendiary bomb attack on a school in Urm Al-Kubra are largely, if not entirely, staged.


[URL="https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/napalm-bomb-school-located/"] 10Dec / 2016
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"Napalm bomb" school located

Videos referenced in this post:

• Video A uploaded to You Tube 26 August 2013
  
• Video B uploaded to You Tube 28 August 2013
  
• Video C uploaded to You Tube 28 August 2013
  
• Video D uploaded to You Tube 27 August 2013
  
• Syria crisis: Incendiary bomb victims like the walking dead' BBC News, 29 August 2013
  
• Saving Syria's Children BBC Panorama special, 30 September 2013
  

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A reader of this blog appears to have located the apartment building and the school in Urm Al-Kubra, Aleppo claimed by the BBC to have been the targets of an incendiary attack by a Syrian fighter jet on Monday 26 August 2013.
By analysing topographical features [1] in Videos A C my reader is confident that the buildings which were allegedly struck are at this location.







Google Maps location of apartment building and school alleged by the BBC to have been attacked with incendiary weapons on 26 August 2013.

The gate of the school can be glimpsed at 13s in Video A.


The school premises in the 29 August 2013 BBC News report. Videos C and D were also shot at the school shortly after the alleged attack.

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Video shows BBC's screaming, stretchered "black dress woman" walking calmly and unaided

My reader also made the potentially significant observation that a figure which appears to be the woman in the distinctive black dress with a gold flower pattern, who was filmed by BBC cameraman Darren Conway upon her subsequent arrival at Atareb Hospital, can be seen in Video A (7 12s) being escorted into an ambulance by a group of men which includes two militarily attired figures. [2]
Notably the woman is filmed walking to the ambulance unaided and with complete composure. She enters through the sliding door on the vehicle's right hand side, presumably climbing up the two steps (Video A, 8s). Moments later, after the ambulance has turned around and is headed towards Atareb, she is glimpsed seated upright within it (Video B, 7 11s). This contrasts markedly with the BBC's footage in which she is carried out through the tailgate of the same ambulance on a mattress by five men, apparently screaming in agony.


A figure which appears to be the woman in the black and gold dress, who was presented as an incendiary bomb victim in the BBC News report of 29 August 2013, walks towards ambulance calmly and unaided, prior to taking an upright seat.
























Enlargements from the same sequence

The same woman filmed by the BBC's Darren Conway upon her arrival at Atareb Hospital, being carried out of the rear of the ambulance on a mattress by five men, apparently screaming in agony.
Darren Conway's footage, also shown in the 30 September 2013 BBC Panorama special Saving Syria's Children (36 minutes), features another sequence of the same woman at Atareb Hospital gate, following her "treatment" with white burns cream. [3]
As discussed here, this woman does not appear to be appreciably younger than the man claiming to be her father (left, above) and, bizarrely, it seems that her distinctive dress and scarf were worn by another alleged victim filmed later in the day at Atareb Hospital.
There can be no doubt that Videos A D relate to the same alleged events reported by the BBC and that the woman entering the ambulance in Video A is the same person who is carried out of it in the BBC's footage.
Video A was posted on 26 August 2013, the day of the alleged incendiary attack, while Videos B, C and D were posted one or two days later. Scrutiny of the ambulance in Videos A and B makes it clear that it is the same one filmed by Conway. Moreover, the two military figures who accompany the woman into the ambulance are clearly identifiable as being present in the BBC's footage [4]:

(Left) Man in combat fatigues with rolled up sleeves and trousers accompanies woman in black dress into ambulance at 9s in Video A; (Right) Same man, identifiable by camouflage pattern on clothing, helps to carry the woman out of the ambulance upon her arrival at Atareb Hospital at 36:39 in Saving Syria's Children.

(Left) Man in combat fatigues, cap, dark body vest and carrying weapon boards ambulance at 8s in Video B and at 40s in Video A; (Right) Same man assists in carrying woman from ambulance at 36:43 in Saving Syria's Children.
Both men board the ambulance on its right side; both are initially in the rear with the woman in the black dress before the man with rolled up sleeves and trousers climbs out and gets into the front passenger seat (Video A, 36s). Upon arrival at Atareb Hospital both men exit the ambulance on its right hand side and both assist in carrying the woman in the black dress out through the tailgate.
Video B, 11s
Saving Syria's Children 36:34
Other individuals appear in both the You Tube footage and the BBC's reports:



Images on left from Video B, right from Saving Syria's Children (32:32 32:35)
Readers of this blog may recall the testimony of a Free Syrian Army commander, stationed in Aleppo province at the time of the alleged attack:
We the fighters of the Free Syrian Army in the North West areas of the City of Aleppo we declare that we were present in this region in August 2013 and we did not meet any air strike with the substance of Napalm on Urum al Kubra or on any other region in the North West Aleppo countryside and we deny the cheap fabrication of the BBC and of the stations that imitate her because it undermine the credibility of the Free Syrian Army. Saying this we do not hesitate to criminalize the criminal acts of the Assad regime and its murderous extermination of its people. And we have done a field investigation with the help of the delegate of the Free Syrian Red Crescent and this has conducted us to confirm what we are saying : no victims, no traces and no memory with anybody of the alleged air strikes with the substance of Napalm.
In 2014 the commander offered to provide BBC journalists with safe transit to Urm Al-Kubra to interview witnesses. Circumstances have changed, but the case for a renewed investigation into the many discrepancies and contradictions surrounding the 26 August 2013 Urm Al-Kubra incident remains pressing. [5]

Notes

[1] My reader deduces that the footage of the aftermath of an attack (Video A, 0:48 4:53) shows the interior and rear yard of the house with two small trees outside it (Video A, 22 30s; Video B, 31 36s) and that this is therefore the apartment building referred to in reports. The shots of emergency vehicles turning towards the afternoon sun (i.e. westwards) at a crossroads (Video B, 13 30s) and the rooftop shots from the school of the surrounding area (Video C, 7:26 8:07) further enabled my reader to locate the vicinity.
The apartment building is not mentioned in the BBC's reports, however this subsequent account by Dr Saleyha Ahsan claims that the first target was a three storey building and in formal complaints correspondence BBC reporter Ian Pannell stated:
There were two attacks. There is eyewitness footage from the first that we have seen: it was a residential apartment block. The second attack was on the school.

Building with two small trees outside from which a tractor can be seen reversing (Video B, 3s).

After turning around from its initial south facing direction to head north towards the Halab-Idlib Road, the ambulance drives past the same building (Video B, 34s).









Damage to the interior of the bombed building (Video B).



Scenes shot in the rear yard of the bombed building (Video A, 2:51) situate it as adjacent to the multi-storey building next to the school (Video B, 3s), the shadows from which can be seen in the first Google Map image above.
[2] The group does not approach the ambulance either from the direction of the school or from that of the apartment building, but from an intermediate point on the opposite side of the road. There appears to be no activity taking place in the environs of the school.
[3] My reader is of the opinion that the woman who boards the ambulance and is carried out of it upon arrival at Atareb Hospital is taller and larger in build than the woman filmed at the hospital gate with her supposed father. I am reasonably satisfied that all three sequences feature the same individual but welcome further observations.

[4] The attire of the man in the cap and dark body vest is very similar to that of the unidentified male of European appearance filmed wearing a radio headset at Atareb Hospital on 26 August 2013:



(Above) Man in combat fatigues, cap, dark body vest and carrying weapon boards ambulance at 8s in Video B; (Below) Unidentified male in combat fatigues and wearing radio headset, discussed in this previous post.
[5] Among numerous other points, questions remain over the nature of the munitions involved in the alleged incendiary attack.
Dr Saleyha Ahsan, one of the British medics featured in Saving Syria's Children, has written:
Peter Bouckaert, of Human Rights Watch, believes the weapon was a ZAB incendiary device. It contains a jellied fuel which "adheres to the skin increasing the level of injury … it's a nasty weapon."
In his original BBC News report of 29 August 2013 Ian Pannell stated:
We don't know for sure what was in the bomb, but the injuries and debris suggests something like napalm or thermite.
The Daily Mail cites a report in which Mary Wareham of the arms division of Human Rights Watch indicates:
the bomb weighed 1,100lbs and contained a fuel similar to napalm.
Posts on The Syrian Archive refer to a "phosphine chemical attack" while captions beneath images taken by photographer Amer Alfaj relate "opposition" claims of "Napalm and White Phosphorous".
Others will be better placed to assess the consistency of these at least partially conflicting accounts and judge which, if any, may correspond with the munition remnants at the scenes, pictured below.

















Images of munition remnants at the school, variously from Video C, Video D, Saving Syria's Children (41:33) and photographs taken by Dr Saleyha Ahsan and posted on The Phoenix Foundation website.
















Images of munition remnants at bombed building, Video A.
Note that in Video D uploaded a day after the alleged incendiary attack the munition casing is handled freely and that in Video A apparently shot on the day of the attack itself one of those present has no qualms about standing on a munition casing in his bare feet.