Freed captives prove chemical attack was Syria rebels’ provocation
● Italian journalist Domenico Quiric and Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin, who were flown home yesterday after spending five months in Syrian rebel’s hostage, have indicated that Syrian insurgents had evidently stood behind the gas attack on a village near Damascus. The former hostages said in a number of interviews to western news outlets they had overheard an English-language Skype conversation between the rebels, who claimed that opposition forces were responsible for the lethal August 21 attack that killed over a thousand civilians. ● "It is a moral duty to say this. The government of Bashar al-Assad did not use sarin gas or other types of gas in the outskirts of Damascus," Piccinin told Belgium's RTL radio station. He said the conversation suggested that opposition intended to force the West to intervene in the Syrian civil war. "They said that the gas attack on two neighborhoods of Damascus was launched by the rebels as a provocation to lead the West to intervene militarily," Quirico told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper. He also said one of their captors identified himself as a Free Syrian Army general. ● Peccinin told the radio station it would be "insane and suicidal for the West to support these people," while Quirico stressed the aim of rebels was to create a caliphate and extend it to the entire Middle East and North Africa. ● In a number of news appearances, Quirico and Piccinin also shared stories of how they were subjected to two mock executions, beaten, and starved during their five-month captivity. They tried to escape twice but failed, prompting the rebel group to punish them.