Global Warming Kills 15 Syrian Soldiers, Wounds 50



Plain Talking

A military training compound in Aleppo was hit by a massive explosion that killed and maimed dozens of soldiers. Syrian officials blame the weather, but is it really the culprit?


The almushat military academy (photo: Alarabiya)

The story of the Syrian officials sounds fishy; extreme heat does indeed cause military equipment to expand and bolts to loosen, but Aleppo is a city well known for its mild weather. The Kuwaiti levels of 50˚C that the officials mentioned to the BBC sound exorbitant. Moreover, according to Alarabiya, the explosion happened at 4:30 in the morning, hardly the hottest time of the day.

The likelier answer would be one or a combination of 3 things: Negligence, corruption or a terrorist attack.

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Discussion

No comments for “Global Warming Kills 15 Syrian Soldiers, Wounds 50”

  1. looks like the Lebanese are paying their friends next door a visit! you know to equal out the bombings in Beirut and Lebanon. what ya think?

    Posted by khalad karim | July 26, 2007, 12:47 pm
  2. i just checked out the SANA propaganda news website and guess what the temperature in Aleppo is a fine 25 degrees Celsius and 13 degrees minimum! where was the 50 degree plus we have been told about?

    Posted by khalad karim | July 26, 2007, 12:58 pm
  3. well, khallad,

    This blog does not in any way endorse terrorist activities. The March 14 resistance against Syrian occupation has always been and will always be a peaceful resistance.

    Posted by beirutspring | July 26, 2007, 1:10 pm
  4. i totally agree beirutspring.com.

    Posted by khalad karim | July 26, 2007, 1:12 pm
  5. When you attack the army in syria you attack the regime itself.
    A message from western intelligence maybe?

    Posted by Nadim | July 26, 2007, 3:37 pm
  6. Love the title.
    Although it might be true, we all know that the Zionists are behind global warming.

    Posted by Traffic | July 26, 2007, 3:51 pm
  7. I think the explosion is to hide the amo that is missing from that barrack!!! (that actually crossed the borders to Iraq or even to Lebanon)
    I wont be surprised of the huge ammount of amo that they will declare destroyed by the explosion.
    It’s not the first time the assads sacrifice their kids to hide behind their fingers.

    Posted by Ralf | July 26, 2007, 4:37 pm
  8. Great title Mustapha.

    Posted by Chief | July 26, 2007, 5:16 pm
  9. Well, this is an issue I know a little something about. The article says it was an explosion at an ammo depot. Ammo depots are usually underground, and they are always set away from areas where people live and work, for safety. It is possible that a round cooked off and started a chain reaction of explosions. It does happen. But at 4 in the morning? And also, the only people who would have been at that ammo depot at 4 AM are the guards. How did such a large number of Syrian troops get caught in a blast at an ammo depot in the wee hours of the morning? I’m not buying that at all. One or two guards might have been close enough to have been killed or injured, but not 75 people. There isn’t an ammo dump on this planet that has 75 guards on post at one time. We had tactical nuclear weapons at the ammo dump for the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. There were 8 guards on post and ~20 in the guard shack at any given time. There are staff personnel at an ammo depot, but they wouldn’t be there during the night.

    It sounds to me like a targeted attack. And not at an ammo depot. More like a barracks. Even a relatively small explosive could kill and injure a large number of people if they were all in a building, sleeping.

    Maybe it was Al Qaeda. I’ve read that there are hundreds of Iraqi Al Qaeda in Syria, and also hundreds of Mahdi Army in Syria. We’ll probably never know what really happened, though.

    Posted by Craig | July 26, 2007, 5:59 pm
  10. Check the temps and other weather conditions for any day in Aleppo:

    http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/OSAP/2007/7/22/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA

    Charts at bottom show hourly changes.

    Posted by JAS | July 26, 2007, 6:26 pm
  11. Poorly stored ammo is only a explosion waiting to happen as the chemicals leak and mix, helped on by the cumulative effect heat over time. This does happen, especially when different types of ammo are badly stored and jumbled together.

    Posted by Jeha | July 29, 2007, 5:57 am
  12. Why wasn’t Israel blamed for this?

    I can’t believe that Syria would blame the weather, and not the Evil Zionist Entity. Is this a sign of progress or is Syria just saying that Zionists were too busy causing sterility (ie, distributing polio vaccines) to the world’s Muslims.

    Posted by American Observer | July 30, 2007, 3:32 pm

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Hello, my name is Mustapha and I blog in The Beirut Spring about Lebanese society and politics. I started in February 2005 after the killing of P.M. Rafik Hariri.

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