Marlowe's Shade

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

WMD maps?

Rumors have been floating around for some time about Iraqi WMD smuggled into Syrian. Most of the earlier reports claimed they were being hidden in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. But in this article from the Metula News Agency that was posted at LGF by Mr Pol, Nizar Nayuf, a journalist who fled the Assad regime in Syria claimed to know the whereabouts of 3 WMD sites in Syria. The account was first published in the Dutch newspaper "De Telegraaf". Apparently Metula came into possession of this map which shows the sites[captions are a Babelfish translation from French - Note: AMD=WMD]:

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

1. Al-Baïd, in the vicinity of Hama (more in North "in top") of three sites, is managed by Cipher, the Syrian office of documentation).
2. Tal Snan, near Salamija (in the East "on the right") is a base of the Syrian Air Force, on which and the essential parts of the Iraqi ADM stored are machined.
3. Sjinsjar, in the south of Homs, close to the Lebanese border "in bottom", where chemical stocks of weapons are stored in tunnels, by several tens of meters under ground and are kept by Brigade 661 of the air forces of Damas.

Then there are the absolutely Syrian bases of ADM, the such gigantic Al-Sapphire site, of which we obtained a photo satellite. An image probably even less detailed than those which are in possession of the American and Israeli services.


LGF's evariste translates as much of the Arabic as possible:

My dear Nizar,
I send you another map of locations that they have secreted to them the (illegible) armaments to Syria from Iraq. (illegible illegible) the map that I previously sent you is other than (illegible). Until now an authority hasn't been hung on what was published in the Telegraph newspaper of Holland on this subject.
New Information (this is underlined in red): The weapons have (illegible) between by means of emergency vehicles and has participated in the operation as well Mohammed Mansoureh. And here are other new alarming data (mufassalah which I'm not sure what that means, classified maybe? the root word fasala means sorted or separated) (next three words illegible) Saddam's munitions to Syria and Lebanon and who has shared in them of the Syrians and Lebanese (I can't read a single word after this, there's about 19 more words but it got a lot smaller and the letters much less distinct. Sorry!)


This is purported to be a satellite photo of the site:
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Caption:

SA2-SAM site = ground-to-air missiles of protection of the site, Soviet manufacture
Al-sapphire CW seedling = Factory of production of chemical weapons (CW for Chemical Weapons)
Ammunition storage = Warehouses of storage of weapons of massive destruction
Probable Scud Bases = probable Base of storage and shooting of the Scud missiles
Tunnel fan-in = Entered principal of the tunnel of access to the buried Scud missiles


The Metula article concludes that the outcome hinges on the US Presidential election[again, in Babelfish pidgin]:

In the event of victory of Bush, however, would immediately engage the countdown of the destruction - in a way or of another - Syrian installations of ADM as of installations perses for the development of nuclear weapons. It is, indeed, of constructions which threaten the free world openly and which the free world does not have of good reason to agree to undergo.
In the event of victory of Kerry, we doubt that the strategic reading of its new administration is basically different from that from old. Just that that would take "a certain time", until the president and the new teams familiarize with the data of international politics. A kind of moratorium, all things considered, which one evaluates at approximately one year, for the modes relics of the Axis of the evil. With less, of course, that the first threatened by these armaments, our friends of Metula, lose patience before the end of the moratorium. And believe well that the state major of the Jews thinks only of that.


If I parsed the translation correctly, if Bush wins, the sites will be eliminated on way or another and as soon as possible. If Kerry wins, a more nuanced considered approach. And Israel will have to sweat it out.
papijoe 8:36 AM
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