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Earlier this month, the OPCW IIT confirmed the obscure M4000 chemical bomb had been used in Sarin attacks in Al-Lataminah. We explain how Bellingcat was able to piece together the bomb's identity over two years ago using scraps of open source information. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/04/21/the-open-source-hunt-for-syrias-favourite-sarin-bomb/
While the two Al-Lataminah Sarin attacks took place in March 2017 it wasn't until October 2017 that Bellingcat began to look in to one of the attacks. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/10/26/investigating-march-30-2017-sarin-attack-al-lataminah/
Why only one of the attacks? Surprisingly, the March 24th 2017 Sarin attack was only identified in a 2018 OPCW Fact Finding Mission investigation, and we've been unable to find any open source evidence about the March 24th Sarin attack. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2018/06/13/opcw-fact-finding-mission-confirms-sarin-chlorine-use-syria/
Bellingcat investigated the March 30th 2017 Sarin attack following a statement in October 2017 by OPCW head Ahmet Uzumcu, stating a Sarin attack had taken place in Al-Lataminah https://www.dw.com/en/sarin-gas-was-used-in-another-syria-attack-this-year-chemical-weapons-watchdog-says/a-40809222
Unlike the Khan Sheikhoun Sarin attack that took place on April 4th 2017, there was scant open source evidence of the March 30th 2017 Al-Lataminah Sarin attack, but open source videos did provide some key evidence, including this piece of debris.
Initially this debris caught our interest because it appeared to include a filling cap identical in design to the filling cap recovered from Khan Sheikhoun several days later, described by the OPCW UN JIM as uniquely consistent with a Syrian chemical bomb.
Soon after our initial investigation into the March 30th 2017 attack two more sets of key information became available. First, the OPCW FFM report on the attack which contained detailed photos we could examine and compare to the Khan Sheikhoun debris.
http://undocs.org/S/2017/931
http://undocs.org/S/2017/931
Second was a November 2017 press conference by representatives of the Russian Federation on the Khan Sheikhoun Sarin attack, where they presented the first public images of Syrian chemical bombs in the form of a diagram detailing the bombs.
Using this diagram and details from the OPCW FFM report we were able to compare details and measurements of the debris and diagram, and show they matched the M4000 chemical bomb.
We also worked with @ForensicArchi to model the debris and compare it a model based on the diagram, showing they fit the model, and each other, perfectly
https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/chemical-attacks-in-al-lataminah
https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/chemical-attacks-in-al-lataminah
The final clue came nearly 2 years later, after a video showing an unexploded M4000 bomb filmed in 2013 was discovered. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2019/09/24/the-first-images-of-the-type-of-chemical-bomb-used-in-syrias-sarin-attacks/
Bellingcat created a 3D model of the bomb from the video, then used the known measurements of the filling caps to measure the width of the bomb, which matched to the 460mm described in the diagram published by Russia.
We asked Forensic Architecture for a second opinion, and, after using photogrammetry to create a photo-realistic model of the bomb, confirmed our earlier findings.
Other details of the bomb in the video were compared to images of debris from Khan Sheikhoun and Al-Lataminah, such as the unusual small notch on the tail fins. Every detail matched.
This new video also offered an answer questions about this piece of debris from Khan Sheikhoun, a folded piece of metal. Some had claimed it was a tube from a rocket or cylinder filled with Sarin, but this video indicated a more likely possibility.
We could see that behind the heavy ballast in the front of the bomb the thin metal that made up the shell of the bomb had folded, almost certainly on impact, giving a likely explanation for the folded piece of metal in the Khan Sheikhoun crater.
In April 2020 the OPCW IIT finally confirmed that the M4000 bomb, previously identified by Bellingcat, was used in both the March 24th and March 30th 2017 Sarin attacks in Al-Lataminah. Open source detective work has been confirmed by the detailed investigative work of the OPCW.
