Aleppo University Fighter Jet Bombing: Really?

[Caustic Logic]

We have some smart people here with military backgrounds and common sense. Right? So why not crowd-source here?

We all know about this heinous event that killed how many?Around 100 give or take. It's not an issue I have looked at in-depth yet (our fairly scant wiki page I started but took a back-seat on - more under "discussion").

I'm spurred to start this due to another bit of evidence that just came up, a Youtube video of the attack from a better view not seen before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_ZoDEqyTTc
Missile is audible here, and in fact visible. Long and white-ish and coming from the right. The blast is fearsome.

There's also a new article at Enduring America: "Proving the Assad Jet Fighter's Attack on Aleppo University" based on this video that more clearly than before disproves a car bomb (for the second blast anyway). As if it's not proven, they have to note there is still no view or sound of the jet from this different vantage point. Witnesses did see it - they admitted it.

A plane hit with two shells. We saw the plane with our own eyes. I am not going to doubt my eyes and believe regime media.

When the plane roamed above the university following the shelling, the university guards and soldiers told us, "Hide, the plane is back!"

The visual spectrum isn't the same for these cameras as these activists' own eyes, I guess. Some kinda flux thing. And the sound too.

So Enduring America still wonders "is it possible that the insurgents launched a surface-to-surface rocket or a surface-to-air missile, trying to hit a regime warplane, which went astray and struck the University?" Yep. They tried to hit the silent/invisible to cameras "stealth bomber," I suspect, but missed (they could see it fine, all good Syrians could, they were just too stoned on Agent 15 nerve gas to hit it right). And that's why the invisible jet was able to fire its deadly and non-silent payload into the "university of the revolution."

Or ... is there a less bizarre explanation that fits the available evidence? One hopes so, since the US State Dept. already said, seriously, like a fact:

The United States is appalled by the Syrian regime’s deadly attack yesterday near the University of Aleppo, ... According to eyewitnesses at the scene, ... only the latest in a long stream of losses inflicted by the Assad regime on its own people.

 

[Caustic Logic]

None yet, anyway.

I could add more here, but the links let anyone follow much of what's being said and found. There's the vapor trail - from the jet, the missile, or both as implied? It's kind of twisty-looking, faint, and either far up or small. See this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPQelg7zvL0

The location on campus has been found
http://wikimapia.org/24975461/en/Faculty-of-Architecture

SANA has always said it was a missile, not a car bomb. But they have it fired from a rebel area to the north-NW, while the video (if not faked/altered, which is quite possible considering) shows it coming from the S-SW (but not from a jet, which would be odd if it was faked - maybe to mesh with the other non-fake known video - an added jet sound would sound bad)

So ... things that might help - comparing types of exhaust trails, altitudes at which different jets are known to be inaudible, leave no visible trail, etc. Maybe footage of Wonder Woman just sitting there, zipping through the sky with hands on an invisible steering wheel.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Maybe footage of Wonder Woman just sitting there, zipping through the sky with hands on an invisible steering wheel.

Maybe you can wake them from indifference with claiming it was bigfoot?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Maybe you can wake them from indifference with claiming it was bigfoot?

I am considering a video fakery argument, but not putting it forth yet.

Guess who has better crowd-sourcing than me? Robert Mackey, the Lede, NYT. Video Suggests Missile Hit Syrian University Good stuff. The smartest-sounding experts agree the opposition kids did NOT see a fighter jet attack, and the State Dept was wrong to trust them. Well, not in so many words, but ...

According to Joseph Holliday, a former Army intelligence officer and a senior analyst at the Institute for the Study of War who studied the clip for The Lede, the video strongly suggests that a missile struck the university. “There’s no jet noise before or after the strike and only missiles would be supersonic – the ripping noise at the end is just the missile ripping through the air,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Add to all that the size of the blast definitely seems more like a ballistic missile than a bomb.”

He suggests it was fired by the government ("the regime didn’t mean to target the university, but their Scuds just aren’t accurate enough and they screwed up – big time"), citing scuds and most likely by the numbers. Then:

Mr. Holliday showed the video to another analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, Christopher Harmer, a former naval officer, who observed: “I am 90 percent confident that is either a Scud or a large surface-to-surface rocket – that is much bigger than a Qassam or Katyusha. Might be a Fajr-5 rocket.” He arrived at that conclusion, he wrote, by the following process of elimination:

R.P.G.? No — explosion is too big. Mortar? No — explosion is too big for the size of mortars in theater. Artillery? No — explosion is too big for any of the artillery pieces in theater. Also, if it were fired by artillery, they would have heard firing. Airdropped bomb? Possible, but unlikely. No visual indication of jets in the area.

The battle of the experts! James Miller, Enduring America, has by now two posts first "proving" and then sharing "definitive evidence" for the jet strike the people swear they saw (did see, he's sure).

There is now conclusive evidence that the explosions at Aleppo University were caused by an airstrike, not a ballistic missile strike and certainly not a car bomb.

Well-placed Western government officials in the region, with access to "technical" information about the strike, have told EA that they "can say with 'certainty' that the missiles were delivered by a jet, flying at altitude".

The officials were specific that their evidence showed that the explosion was not from a ballistic missile fired from the ground or a bomb dropped from the aircraft.

The officials would not divulge the basis for this information, but a source for EA indicates that Western government have used sophisticated radar, deployed in Turkey and other countries in the region, as well as information gathered from classified "listening posts" that monitor signal interceptions and pilot chatter.

Some details on the cloaking mechanism might be in that top-secret chatter, huh? What a bunch of crap. Took his counter-point to Mackey's blog (last comment before mine)

We've done extensive audio and video analysis of this incident. We've also worked closely with a panel of arms experts. The conclusion is that this was not a ballistic missile. In fact, every expert we spoke to said that this was an airstrike. The debate was whether this was a bomb or an air-to-ground missile. Now, that debate may have also been decided.

Winner? Yeah, it's Mackey. Right?

Now, back to where we were - who said this was a surface-fired missile/rocket, and so was the other blast before it? A few people. SANA and the Syrian government. A rebel fighter. At least one prior expert. You'll hear around that the gov. blamed car bomb(s), but I simply cannot find anywhere where they said anything but "rocket shells" (as SANA translates it). See here for what I found, and feel free to revise me with anything contrary. (the rebel and prior expert refs are at that link too)

The Syrians have specified the "terrorists" (their catch-all phrase for protesters and people who fire missiles at college dorms), speculatively, as most likely, Al-Nusrah Front. They are usually car bomb people, but the weapon being missiles/rockets has never apparently been revised (see again the above link). Also, some rebels told The Guardian's Chulov they though Al-Nusra was responsible. (same)

The one source I know of allegedly citing a car bombing was the Facebook page of Al-Nusra Front, posted quick and taken back in 12 min (allegedly - I don't even know if they have a FB page). Reportedly, that said two car bombs with martyrs were used, denied later (they only announce in Jihadi forums, not on FB). (possible mix-up with the Idelb double suicide bombing of a couple hours after this attack)

So ... yeah. The brutal regime always said it was what you see/hear in the video evidence, and that it was fired by rebels. Rebels made up some crap about circling fighter jets. Why? It was a missile the experts think rebels don't have, they're off the hook, but too late to stp them making up crap. But the gov. says they do have whatever it was, and they haven't been caught lying about this yet.

Although the direction is now in contention with this new video. Rebel counter-argument 2.0! Another battle of experts?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Looks like my detailed first comment at the Lede was deleted. Didn'tsave it, but nothing major. In case the second one also isn't allowed either:

Was my comment (as Caustic Logic) removed? It's okay, maybe too critical and had self-serving links. Might I just point out though:

1) Excellent work, and a valuable contribution.

2) it seems the consensus is this was a government-fired missile, as the rebels don't have anything like this, whatever exactly it is

3) The opposition told the debunked tales of a fighter jet, while the government claimed just what we now see happened(physically anyway). That's well-worth pondering on.

3b) Put simpler, the claim that the Syrian government blamed car bombs is not substantiated and I cannot find a single instance after some searching. They always said "rocket shells"as SANA translated it.

I was critical of this clown "edward dark" who's in Aleppo. He tweeted:

another thing u should consider about Aleppo Uni bombings. first claim by regime was mortars, then a car bomb, then to rebel rockets

As established, false. From day one they said what the video shows. He also was fairly near by anyway, he says:

I myself was driving up the road, just a few miles away from the jet strike. I clearly heard a jet fighter swooping, then a blast

Maybe he heard the same whoosh we hear from the projectile? Inside his car, nah. Another or a made-up jet, probably. Heard the blast "a few miles away"? It was pretty loud.

 

[WildCat]

I am considering a video fakery argument, but not putting it forth yet.

Guess who has better crowd-sourcing than me? Robert Mackey, the Lede, NYT. Video Suggests Missile Hit Syrian University Good stuff. The smartest-sounding experts agree the opposition kids did NOT see a fighter jet attack, and the State Dept was wrong to trust them. Well, not in so many words, but ...

Indeed, interesting stuff. Do jet fighters fire missiles at ground targets? Why yes they do. And can they fire them from miles away? Why yes they can. So how does this video rule out a fighter jet attack?

Your boy Bashar Assad claims the explosion was from a car bomb, yet you have started no thread about this obvious and indisputable lie.

Hmmm...

 

[Childlike Empress]

Your boy Bashar Assad claims the explosion was from a car bomb, yet you have started no thread about this obvious and indisputable lie.

Hmmm...

Yo kitten, running your mouth again without reading a post you respond to? Or do you have evidence for Assad claiming that car bombs caused this? In this case you are, as usually, more than welcome to provide evidence of that "obvious and indisputable lie" so that nobody thinks it is your claim which is an obvious and indisputable lie. You know (if you read the post you responded to), people have been searching. Hmmm...

 

[WildCat]

Yo kitten, running your mouth again without reading a post you respond to? Or do you have evidence for Assad claiming that car bombs caused this?

It's in Caustic Logic's own link:

As my colleague C.J. Chivers noted on his blog, if the new video of the second blast is authentic, those frames and the loud whir of the missile just before the explosion, appear to rule out initial claims from the government that the explosions were caused by car bombs.

Now Empress dear, can you answer a simple question?

Do jet fighters fire missiles at ground targets?

 

[Childlike Empress]

It's in Caustic Logic's own link:

That's the claim of some investigator who was asked to provide evidence (by CL and others) without being able to do so other than some twitter post of a buddy and against statements of "regime controlled" SANA, like you can read if you follow some other link in CL's post.

You answer the questions here as you chose to raise your whiskers - where's the evidence? If there isn't any, do you retract that claim and promise to pay attention?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Do jet fighters fire missiles at ground targets?

Wildcat, thanks! The wiki is down today. Error 503, hopefully temporary maintenance and not the result of an attack. We did somehow sneak up, with our (actually inadequate) university attack page getting into the top 10 on a Google search of the whole Internet. Mackey doesn't like us speaking, nor Miller probably, and lots of rebel-supporting hacktivists won't so... my imagination kicks in.

So I have a minute to say yes they do. True, hypothetically, it could have been miles away and thus not able to be seen or heard at the site. I don't know about missile ranges and sound ranges with scientific precision.

Now... that could explain the videos not seeing and maybe not hearing the jet, but how does it explain the activist students seeing it with their own eyes, flying over, circling back, and bombing again?

You may recall that was their now de-bunked first claim. Why did they feel a need to put fort a false claim? When you think the gov. did the same, you take it as a sign of guilt.

The government's now-supported first claim was missiles or as SANA translated it "rocket shells" - two of them - were fired from the ground. There are many people saying they blamed car bombs, but no one is able to show where they said that. How that idea got so prevalent, I don't know. I tried hard and couldn't find any such statement.

So they've been caught being right, and not caught telling any lies. Activists, opposite score. Guilty conscience?

 

[Caustic Logic]

That's the claim of some investigator who was asked to provide evidence (by CL and others) without being able to do so other than some twitter post of a buddy and against statements of "regime controlled" SANA, like you can read if you follow some other link in CL's post.

You answer the questions here as you chose to raise your whiskers - where's the evidence? If there isn't any, do you retract that claim and promise to pay attention?

That was Mackey linking to Chivers (neither of whom I've spoken to except by deleted comments). I didn't read what he said at the link provided 'til now. "Was this a car bomb, as some might have you believe?" Some might have you believe that some is the Syrian gov. Chivers might, but he's a smart guy. But once again, surprise, no link to support it. Urban legend, allowing for backup "regime lying!" argument to answer the fact that "the regime" was right all along, as they have been before (not that it's usually recognized)

 

[WildCat]

That's the claim of some investigator who was asked to provide evidence (by CL and others) without being able to do so other than some twitter post of a buddy and against statements of "regime controlled" SANA, like you can read if you follow some other link in CL's post.

You answer the questions here as you chose to raise your whiskers - where's the evidence? If there isn't any, do you retract that claim and promise to pay attention?

LOL! So the source is good when it says what you want and bad when it says what you don't want to believe.

This thread should be in conspiracy theories.

 

[Childlike Empress]

LOL! So the source is good when it says what you want and bad when it says what you don't want to believe.

This thread should be in conspiracy theories. Wah, wah, the Empress was mean to me and turned my sloppy and inadequate attempt at ridicule around! Now I want it all gone!

Fixed that for you, kitten.

@CL: Guru Meditation!

 

[tyr_13]

So... there isn't evidence that it was or wasn't either a car bomb or a jet attack. And this is support that it wasn't a jet attack because?

 

[Childlike Empress]

So... there isn't evidence that it was or wasn't either a car bomb or a jet attack. And this is support that it wasn't a jet attack because?

Please read the first paragraph of the OP. That's the spirit of the thread. There's quite a discussion about that new video and the event going on right now - elsewhere. The OP thinks your contributions can be useful in helping to determine who was behind this disgusting crime of killing over 80 and wounding hundreds, mostly students and refugees, on the campus of Aleppo University on the first day of exams.

 

[Childlike Empress]

btw, here's the initial PressTV piece on this event, with "close-to-the-regime" journalist Alaa Ebrahim (who shares some of his story in this excellent documentary) - no car bombs involved in his or the station's frustrated assessment of the situation.

 

[BenBurch]

In fact, if you think there may be light AA on the ground at your target, you will almost always select a stand-off weapon rather than a gravity bomb.

 

[Caustic Logic]

LOL! So the source is good when it says what you want and bad when it says what you don't want to believe.

Do you want to believe there was a fighter jet?

This thread should be in conspiracy theories.

Can you explain why?

You are bad at paying attention. For example, I said this:

You'll hear around that the gov. blamed car bomb(s), but I simply cannot find anywhere where they said anything but "rocket shells" (as SANA translates it). See here for what I found, and feel free to revise me with anything contrary. (

And then you said this:

Your boy Bashar Assad claims the explosion was from a car bomb, yet you have started no thread about this obvious and indisputable lie.

Hmmm...

It's half of what this short thread I just started is about. Not too many posts here yet to lose that in. Mood too serious for eye rolling back atcha.

 

[Caustic Logic]

So... there isn't evidence that it was or wasn't either a car bomb or a jet attack.

No. There is evidence that it wasn't a car bomb, and there's also evidence it wasn't a jet. According to the cited experts, the evidence suggests it was a larger ballistic missile.

ETA: Sorry, missile or larger rocket. More specific, to re-quote one expert (see also above): “I am 90 percent confident that is either a Scud or a large surface-to-surface rocket – that is much bigger than a Qassam or Katyusha. Might be a Fajr-5 rocket.” I cannot vouch for that or prove he has no agenda. But it makes a fair amount of sense to me. Note Scud suggests gov. origin, but gov. always said it was a rocket, which the expert also thinks is possible. One or the other or something similar. There are sound issues making the other guy say missile only, as he thinks it's supersonic "the ripping noise at the end is just the missile ripping through the air,” which I thought made it sonic. But I don't know...

And this is support that it wasn't a jet attack because?

Because they can't fire that size of missile, I think. And there's no sign of one anywhere nearby, even though (certain) students there swear they saw it plain as day.

 

[Caustic Logic]

In fact, if you think there may be light AA on the ground at your target, you will almost always select a stand-off weapon rather than a gravity bomb.

1) Do you think the government forces feared there was light AA - that would shoot at them - stationed at Aleppo University?

2) How does a distant (stood-off) jet firing its Scud suare with this alleged witness?

A plane hit with two shells. We saw the plane with our own eyes. I am not going to doubt my eyes and believe regime media.

When the plane roamed above the university following the shelling, the university guards and soldiers told us, 'hide, the plane is back!'"

(see here and here)