{"id":359093,"date":"2018-04-30T18:59:11","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T17:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/amid-missiles-and-bombs-in-damascus-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2018-04-30T18:59:11","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T17:59:11","slug":"amid-missiles-and-bombs-in-damascus-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/amid-missiles-and-bombs-in-damascus-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid Missiles and Bombs in Damascus\u00a0 \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In this special report to Consortium News from the Syrian capital, Jeff Klein describes a people getting back on their feet after the defeat of jihadists in Ghouta, while explosives remain a part of daily life.
<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By Jeff Klein \u00a0<\/b>Special to Consortium News<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In Damascus<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

The bombardments started precisely at\u00a04am\u00a0local time and continued for the better part of an hour. Only the timing was a surprise here, as Trump had been threatening a reprisal attack for the alleged use by the Syrian government of chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus the previous week.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By all accounts, most Syrians were unfazed by the missile attack.\u00a0 There were\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>videos<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0of Damascenes cheering from rooftops as air defense rockets were launched over the city to intercept the US, French and British missiles.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>tweet<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0that the attack had been \u201cperfectly carried out\u201d is likely an overstatement. The Russian and Syrian militaries claim that the majority of the incoming missiles were shot down or diverted electronically from their targets, although this is impossible to verify.\u00a0 But it is being reported that two unexploded missiles were handed over to the Russians for technical examination.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, before and after photos of the alleged military\/chemical research center in Damascus show pretty thoroughgoing destruction.\u00a0 But the US attacks had been so fully telegraphed \u2013 there were claims that the Russians were informed in advance of the targets \u2013 that the buildings were empty and there were no reported fatalities.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, if these Damascus targets had actually been chemical weapons facilities as charged there would have been massive civilian casualties from the fallout.\u00a0 There were none.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A \u2018Fake\u2019 Chemical Attack<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Syrians I spoke to here all derided the chemical attack charge as fake news.\u00a0 Nearly…<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this special report to Consortium News from the Syrian capital, Jeff Klein describes a people getting back on their feet after the defeat of jihadists in Ghouta, while explosives remain a part of daily life. By Jeff Klein \u00a0Special to Consortium News In Damascus A loud and persistent booming woke everyone up here in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-359093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}