There was something very strange about the rockets that landed in Zamalka, a city south of Syrian capital, shortly after two in the morning at 21 August. There was no explosion. However, they passed through house walls and started to produce gases that proved deadly. Hundreds of people who were sleeping at the house at that time were killed instantly and unsteadily, as if they were drowned by invisible hands. A cloud of death had spread quietly and costing hundreds of lives.
Shortly after the dawn of the next day, Muhammed al-Jazaeri, a 27 year old mechanical που είχε γίνει μέλος μιας συμμαχίας ακτιβιστών που είχαν σαν στόχο να ρίξουν το καθεστώς του προέδρου Bashar al-Assad, αισθάνθηκε την ανάγκη να καταγράψει ό, τι είχε συμβεί. Βρήκε μια από τις ρουκέτες να προεξέχει από ένα σπίτι ένα μίλι από το σπίτι του. Θέλοντας να παρουσιάσει στον κόσμο την “πραγματική εικόνα” της ζωής στη Συρία, χρησιμοποίησε μια φορητή φωτογραφική μηχανή της Sony για να τραβήξει ένα σύντομο βίντεο από τα ερείπια που υπήρχαν μπροστά του. Την ίδια ημέρα, ανέβασε το clip σε μια ιστοσελίδα που έχει γίνει ένα κόμβος πληροφοριών για τους παρατηρητές του πολέμου, on YouTube. (Photo mycatbirdseat.com)
Several hours later and 2.300 miles northwest of Leicester, England, a blogger, the Eliot Higgins saw the al-Jazaeri video from his laptop. Higgins watched events in Syria, Twitter, Google+ from 600 about Syrian YouTube accounts. From his living room, Higgins simply wondered who was responsible for this act.
Higgins is 34 years old with a 2-year-old daughter and no work. He had no formal training, knowledge or security clearance that gave him access in classified documents. He could not speak or read Arabic. He had never set foot in the Middle East, and his only contact was a visit to his in-laws who live in Turkey.
On 18 months Higgins had begun to watch blogging about Syria, especially his blog Brown Moses, which was the main source of information on the weapons used in the Syrian deadly war. Using nothing more than an Asus laptop, he revealed from the evidence that was written on the rocket that weapons are being imported into Syria by Iran. He was the first to recognize the widely-prohibited bombs used by the Syrian forces. The New York Times, based on his findings, proved to prove that Saudi Arabia had given arms to Syria.
The mystery of the August 21 rocket played a key role in letting the world know that it was indeed a chemical weapons attack launched by Bashar al-Assad's own forces. This conclusion led to a diplomatic agreement under which the Syrian government should be subject to international inspections and pledged to destroy chemical weapons stockpiles.
"I saw that the UN got the Nobel Prize for Syria," said a weapons expert, referring to the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, who did not want to be named because of the cooperationwith the international organization. "I think Eliot has done a lot more for Syria than the UN"
The entire article is in Huffington Post
