The news about containers with chemical weapons that were supposedly seen on photos from Shayrat airbase in Syria was fake.
A series of RIA Novosti photos of Shayrat airbase depicted containers for "chemical weapons." Many Western and Ukrainian news agencies reported immediately that the photos indeed contained evidence to prove the presence of chemical weapons at the airbase.
Soon afterwards, correspondent of Russia's state-run TV and Radio Broadcasting Company Yevgeny Poddubny published a video that he made at Shayrat airfield. The video that the journalist posted on his Instagram account showed that there were no chemical weapons at the base. The journalist did not have to wear any protective gear to make the video. According to him, if there had been any chemical weapons at the Syrian base, even empty containers would have been highly dangerous.
"Look at the containers that they call chemical weapons at the Shayrat airbase. In fact, these containers have nothing to do with warfare agents - these are bomb containers for aviation equipment. They are used not only for the transportation of ammunition, but also for various cargoes and equipment," Yevgeny Poddubny said.
Interestingly, the Daily Mail unexpectedly removed the article from January 2013 about the plans of the USA to arrange a chemical attack in Syria and blame Assad for it.
"According to InformNapalm community volunteer Mikhail Kuznetsov, the photographs depicted blocks to small-sized cargo containers that can be both high-explosive cluster and chemical ammunition BKF-P. Each BKF-P bomb contains 12 cassette elements with soman gas," Ukrainian media reported.
Yet, the report from the Russian journalist proved otherwise.
Representatives of the Conflict Intelligence Team reacted to Poddubny's video report. The team is known for its infamous investigations about Russian Air Force bombing Syrian children at hospitals or the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine.
"In the evening of April 7, we published a photo of RIA Novosti photographer Mikhail Voskresensky made at Shayrat air base after the US cruise missile attack. We noted that it shows objects reminiscent of Soviet containers with chemical weapons that one could earlier see in Russian media reports about the destruction of those weapons," they wrote.
"Some media and bloggers took this as convincing evidence to prove the presence of chemical weapons at Shayrat airfield, from which, according to Pentagon officials, Syrian aircraft took off to commit a chemical attack on the village of Khan-Sheikhun in the province of Idlib, in which dozens of civilians were killed. Some even assumed that Assad received chemical weapons from Russia," CIT representatives also wrote.
"Today, Russian journalists published photos and videos from Shayrat air base, where one can see BKF containers that are similar to chemical weapons containers seen in news reports about their destruction. However, those containers are designed for cluster submunitions AO-2,5RT," CIT concluded asking mass media outlets to refute the information.
Additionally, UK-trained doctor Shajul Islam, whom Western media hailed as a hero, had been accused of kidnapping journalists in the past. According to the Daily Mail, the doctor was arrested in the UK several years ago on suspicion of kidnapping British photographer John Cantlie and his Dutch counterpart Jeroen Oerlemans. In October 2012, Islam was brought to trial.
Cantlie, who survived the captivity, then told law enforcement that there were at least 15 Britons among the militants, and one of whom spoke with a pronounced South London accent. Shajul Islam was detained at Heathrow Airport upon his arrival from Egypt. He was also suspected of having traveled to Syria to take part in hostilities on the side of terrorists. However, he himself claimed that he was helping the wounded in the Arab country. The case could not hold water and was closed.
Following the chemical attack, Islam published a video about his patients on Twitter. The caption to the video said that the hospital took care of three victims, who had narrow pupils that did not respond to light. Immediately afterwards, Turkey's Health Ministry said that there was sarin gas found in the bodies of the victims.
Representatives of Swedish Doctors For Human Rights, who analysed the video of medical assistance to "victims of Assad's chemical attack" said that the footage could be staged.
"Swedish Doctors For Human Rights (swedhr.org) analysed videos of the rescue operation after an alleged attack by Syrian government forces. The doctors found that the videos were counterfeit, where even Arabic stage directions were overheard, and that the alleged "Rescue" in actuality is a murder. On first analysis, it looked as though the doctors working on the child assumed he was already dead. In fact, the question of which poison was used that day is open," VeteransToday wrote.
"However, after broader investigation, our team ascertained that the boy was unconscious from an overdose of opiates. The video shows the child receiving injections in his chest, perhaps in the area of the heart and was eventually killed while a clearly fake adrenaline injection was administered. This was a murder.
"The handling and treatment of the child was done in a manner that was careless, dangerous and likely to cause serious harm. Most telling is the fake repeated shots of adrenalin, supposedly into the heart. The medical personnel, and we can safely call them actors at this point, failed to push the plunger on the needle. Thus, the contents of the syringe were never injected as is clearly visible in the video itself," the article on VeteransToday said.
The recent chemical attack in Syria brings up the experience of the use of sarin gas by Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, when thousands of people were killed. This time, however, the White Helmets did not have an American analogue of the chemical agent detector kit.
"If they have the device, why can't they make a video, in which they pump air through an indicator tube that displays the presence of sarin?" journalists wondered.
In fact, the carelessness of the medical personnel in the video and strange methods of aiding the victims suggests that it was a warehouse of chemical weapons of ISIS terrorists that was bombed.