Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Who bombed Aleppo University? A retired captain of the Turkish armed forces weighs in

From Ali, Angry Arab's chief correspondent in Turkey:
"Dear Assad,

I asked the opinions of a retired captain of Turkish Armed Forces (Prefers not to be named) about the latest video claimed to be showing the moment of hitting of Aleppo University and the speculations of the opposition.

The video

- To decide what hits the university without a comprehensive investigation and expose the responsibles of the attack can be illusory but "after watching just two videos" I may say that the sounds of the "undefined object" (UO) is probably a surface-to-surface missile (STSM) Its destructive capability and the roars are my evidences. The roars stopping at moment of the blast show that the UO passes very close to the cameraman.
- The second thing that supports my theory is that neither people around the university, nor the cameraman do not pay attention to the sky. If there was a raid then they would have been watching or glancing the sky or probably cameraman would have tried to capture it.
- We cannot see an aircraft nor hear its sounds. If the UO was an air-to-surface missile (ATSM) probably the pilot would have maneuvered or drawn a circle/circles around the university so we would have heard its sound but instead, we hear the sound of UO for a few seconds before the university was hit.
- The claims of the opposition about eyewitness saw aircraft “dropping” the bomb is pointless. UO is almost definitely a missile whether its STSM or ATSM. So, they would have seen "firing” not "dropping". If their claims were accurate (dropping bombs), then we would have precisely seen or heard the aircraft. No aircraft in the world achieve to "drop bomb" on its target without passing directly above it. I know the video was captured by a mobile phone but it catched the sounds of UO, so probably it is able to record the sound of an aircraft.
- STSM does not directly highlights a "terrorist attack", Syrian army should conduct an investigation and share its conclusion rapidly. They may publish the radar records. STSM and ATSM do not melts into air after the blast. There should be solid fuel residuals and shrapnel. They also publish the reports about the conflicts in Aleppo at that they (where are the combat zones, rebels stronghold and the position of the army, its operations etc) ( All armies record daily all the conflicts and manuveurs in a front). So if their scenario has a consistency then we would be close to expose the responsibles. (Also opposition should try to do it, they have ex-officers in their ranks, also they may talk with the local people to write a consistent story) But their first assumption is totally wrong for me, at least Syrian Army has a consistent one for the first step.
- If this my observations are true, and if the FSA is responsible, for me it indicates that the allies of the FSA gave them short range STSM and the university was targeted intentionally because the possibility of two missiles hitting same target accidentally is weak scenario... As because, hand made missiles are not so sensitive in targeting, and it seems to me difficult to determine whether its is hand made or not from the AFP photo. (This photo:) "