Russia Says It Was the Syrian Rebels Who Used Chemical Weapons

After refusing to buy the U.S. evidence that the Syrian government was responsible for chemcial weapons attacks on its own people, Russia now says that there was a chemical attack in that country, but it was the rebels who were the responsible party. Back in April, U.S. officials formally accused Bashar al-Assad's forces of using chemical weapons and took their case to the United Nations, the Europeans, and the Russians in the hope of spurring international action. Moscow dismissed the claims as "unconvincing," but now they have submitted their own scientific analysis of a projectile that was fired on the city of Aleppo and agreed with claims that the weapons was filled with sarin gas. They just don't agree on the source.

RELATED: Russia Says Evidence of Syrian Chemical Weapons Is 'Not Convincing'

The basis of their claim that it was rebel fighters appears to be that the weapon they found was not a standard munition like the kind that would be manufactured for a legitimate army. Therefore, it must have rigged up by the lesser-equipped opposition. It's not clear how such primitive fighters would have got their hands on sarin gas without the weapons to deliver them.

RELATED: Report: Russia Stopped Syria From Gassing Rebels

It's also not clear what Russia expects the United Nations to do with this information. For two years now, Moscow has been doing everything possible to prevent foreign intervention in Syria, arguing that it's not right to interfere in another country's affairs. And it's been two months since the U.S. leveled the same charge against the Assad regime and nothing has come of it. (In part, because the evidence is not airtight, but that's another story.) The war continues and despite talk on all sides that chemical weapon use is totally unacceptable, the evidence that someone is using chemical weapons is too strong to ignore. Yet, somehow it probably will be.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia's U.N. ambassador said Tuesday that Russian experts determined that Syrian rebels made sarin nerve gas and used it in a deadly chemical weapon attack outside Aleppo in March.

Ambassador Vitaly Churkin blamed opposition fighters for the March 19 attack in the government-controlled Aleppo suburb of Khan al-Assal, which he said killed 26 people, including 16 military personnel, and injured 86 others.

The rebels have blamed the government for the attack. The U.S. Britain and France have said they have seen no evidence to indicate that the opposition has acquired or used chemical weapons — only the Syrian government.

Churkin told reporters after delivering an 80-page report to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the Assad regime asked Russia, its closest ally, to investigate the attack after a U.N. team of chemical weapons experts was unable to enter the country in a dispute over the probe's scope.

The samples taken from the impact site of the gas-laden projectile were analyzed at a Russian laboratory certified by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Churkin said.

He said the analysis showed that the unguided Basha'ir-3 rocket that hit Khan al-Assal was not a military-standard chemical weapon.

Churkin said the results indicate it "was not industrially manufactured and was filled with sarin." He said the samples indicated the sarin and the projectile were produced in makeshift "cottage industry" conditions, and the projectile "is not a standard one for chemical use."

The absence of chemical stabilizers, which are needed for long-term storage and later use, indicated its "possibly recent production," Churkin said.

"Therefore, there is every reason to believe that it was the armed opposition fighters who used the chemical weapons in Khan al-Assal," Churkin said.

"According to information at our disposal," he added, "the production of 'Basha'ir 3' unguided projectiles was started in February 2013 by the so-called 'Basha'ir al-Nasr' brigade affiliated with the Free Syrian Army."

On Monday Syria invited Ake Sellstrom, head of the U.N. fact-finding mission on allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria, and U.N. disarmament chief Angela Kane to visit Damascus for foreign-minister level talks on conducting a probe of the Khan al-Assal attack.

The Russian ambassador strongly backed the idea, calling it "a promising process" that hopefully will lead to an investigation.

Britain, France and the United States have provided the secretary-general with information on other alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Ban has repeatedly said he wants a broader investigation than just Khan al-Assal.

"We support a thorough investigation of all credible allegations," Churkin said, but added that Russian experts "were not impressed at all" by the material provided to them by the U.K., U.S. and France.

President Barack Obama's administration says it has "high confidence" that Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces have killed up to 150 people with sarin gas.

In a letter to the secretary-general on June 14, then U.S. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said the U.S. had determined that sarin was used in the March 19 attack on Khan al-Assal and also in an April 13 attack on the Aleppo neighborhood of Shaykh Maqsud. She said unspecified chemicals, possibly including chemical warfare agents, were used May 14 in an attack on Qasr Abu Samrah and in a May 23 attack on Adra.

The use of a chemical weapon crossed Obama's "red line" for escalating U.S. involvement in the conflict and prompted the decision to send arms and ammunition to the opposition, not just humanitarian aid and non-lethal material like armored vests and night goggles.

Churkin said Russia plans to provide the 80-page report to the U.S., U.K. and France, and "I hope they find it persuasive." But he said it will not be made public.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky had no immediate comment on the issue, noting that the Russian ambassador had delivered the "weighty and quite technical" report only minutes earlier. He said the Department of Disarmament Affairs would study it and provide guidance to the secretary-general.

The interior of an unoccupied communal cellblock is seen at Camp VI, a prison used to house detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, March 5, 2013. (Bob Strong/Reuters)

Press secretary Jay Carney’s comments came after U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler urged Obama to personally address the controversy over the hunger strike at the notorious facility. Kessler dismissed a suit from a Guantanamo detainee who argued that the government will infringe upon his religious freedom by force-feeding him during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which begins Tuesday, but called the practice “painful, humiliating and degrading" and pressed the president to act.

Asked about Kessler's comments, Carney told reporters at his daily briefing, "On the questions of litigation I would refer you to the Department of Justice and the Defense Department, which obviously runs Guantanamo Bay, I would refer you to them for specifics about the hunger strikers."

But "we don’t want these individuals to die. And, you know, the action being taken is to prevent that from happening," he underlined. Obama "understands that this is a challenging situation."

Jihad Dhiab, a Syrian detainee who was cleared for release by the Guantanamo Review Task Force in 2009 but has remained imprisoned, sued with three other detainees over the military's policy of forcibly feeding detainees who are on hunger strike and lose a certain amount of their body weight.

Dhiab claimed that the forced feeding would violate his religious freedom during the month of Ramadan, when devotees are supposed to fast until sundown each day. It is the U.S military and prisons policy not to allow prisoners to starve themselves, but the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Medical Association and other groups have said the practice is inhumane and that people should have the right to starve themselves in protest. Dhiab is one of 45 Guantanamo prisoners on a force-feed list, with a total of 106 captives on hunger strike. Only 60 of the 166 Guantanamo prisoners are not currently on hunger strike.

Carney reiterated Obama's wish to close the facility.

Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.

A fifth-grade teacher in a tiny town in Washington State is under investigation for allegedly sexually molesting a 10-year-old male student.

Police in Othello have been investigating Scootney Springs Elementary School teacher Lisa Davis, reports KHQ. In late May, another local teacher informed school officials that something fishy might be going on between Davis and the fifth-grader.

“Our investigation unveiled some criminal elements. Enough to charge her, we believe,” Othello police chief Alvia Dunnigan told the local NBC affiliate.

The alleged, unnamed victim was in the teacher’s reading class, according to local CBS affiliate KREM.

For whatever reason, police also noted that Davis is not related to the victim.

In March 2012, Davis was honored as a teacher of the month by a collaborative effort between KHQ and nearby Eastern Washington University.

“She’s a really awesome teacher,” said the student who nominated Davis at the time, according to The Othello Outlook. “She has a lot of respect for everyone and she’s nice all the time.

“When I think of the word ‘teacher,’ I think of Lisa Davis,” gushed school district superintendent George Juarez.

The county prosecutor will now decide whether to file criminal charges. Police have recommended a charge of first-degree child molestation.

Davis was placed on administrative on the same day the police investigation began. She later quit her job.

“Ms. Davis submitted her resignation from the District on June 18, 2013 and the Board of Directors approved resignation on June 24, 2013,” said the Othello schools superintendent in a statement.

Spokane ABC affiliate KXLY has managed to dig up the basic facts on Davis. She attended Central Washington University and has an unspecified master’s degree. Her annual salary before she resigned was $61,721 (as of 2011).

As of 1997, she was married and had three children.

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