Did Syria "rebel chemicals" story come from Russian source?

A story on an obscure American news website, Mint Press, has been central to Russian claims that rebels exploded chemical weapons in Damascus rather than the Assad regime.

The credibility of that story has since been undermined, and today Buzzfeed takes a long look at Mint Press' shadowy backers and their Iranian links.

Middle East specialist Brian Whitaker has been digging deeper and asks detailed questions about its author and whether the story was actually planted by Russia:

I have spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks looking into the story that Saudi Arabia provided rebel fighters in Syria with chemical weapons. More specifically, I have been looking at the story of how it became a story - along with the questions this raises about the boundaries between journalism and propaganda, and about attempts to manufacture credibility for a report that was lacking in evidence...

...The eagerness with which Syria "truthers" latched on to this tale was bizarre since it relied on anonymous sources and uncritical quoting of them – practices that the truthers object to vigorously when they are found in mainstream media. But on this occasion it told them what they wanted to hear...

...Essentially, what Mint Press did with its chemical weapons story was to take a short cut by piggy-backing on the credibility of an international news agency, the Associated Press. Dale Gavlak's association with AP added enormously to the story's credibility and helped to compensate for its flimsiness in terms of hard facts. That's why Mint Press insisted on including her name on the story, even though her actual role in it is disputed.

More: Manufacturing Credibility. How the Syria 'Rebel Chemicals' Story Was Over-Sold

Whitaker has tracked down a comment written by the author of the Mint Press story, Yan Barakat aka Yahya Ababneh, written on the Daily Mail website, before the Mint Press article was published:

Barakat then adds some information that wasn't included in the Mint Press story which has done so much to excite Russian officials: "Some old men arrived in Damascus from Russia and one of them became friends with me. He told me that they have evidence that it was the rebels who used the weapons."

More Yahya Ababneh exposed: Syria "rebel chemicals" story may have come from Russian source.

Arabic Wikipedia vs conspiracy theories?

One of the reasons why the Youtube anti-Muslim video became the source for massive, violent demonstrations last year was because people could not believe it wasn't 'government approved', a conspiracy.

A Demos researcher, Jamie Bartlett, wrote last year for the New York Times:

When Americans visit the Middle East or the broader Islamic world, they are often struck by the vitality of public interest and discussion about world affairs. Less comfortably, they often find the public to be cynical about Western interests, and quick to believe that shadowy groups control the world: that a cabal of Jews was responsible for 9/11 or that the C.I.A. instigated the Arab Spring for oil access.

This is not a stereotype, but a fact of Middle Eastern cultures – and a fact that Western nations must reckon with. Conspiracy theories of this type are ubiquitous in the region.

Conspiracy theories are not the only reason such people might distrust 'the West', as Stephen M. Walt points out angrily here in Foreign Policy. But it is nevertheless pleasing to read in Global Post of a massive expansion in Arabic Wikipedia and a rapidly growing project linking academia with the encyclopedia.

Bartlett points out that:

Skepticism is usual and healthy, but conspiracy theories inspire a generalized, knee-jerk cynical mistrust.

That Wikipedia is linking up in this way, in this part of the world could have the potential to seriously undermine the conspiracy brokers.

The Post article says that universities in Ukraine, Poland and Egypt are encouraging their students to post their thesis as Wikipedia entries.

Although critics warn that Wikipedia articles are no substitute for rigorous academic papers, supporters say more than simply putting more information at public disposal, erasing boundaries between the internet and academia will invigorate scholarship by enabling it to benefit everyone.

"Contributing to Wikipedia considerably increases students' motivation since their articles can be read by the whole world, not just their teachers or supervisors," argues Sergei Petrov, one of the Wikipedia project coordinators in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute ran a test program during its last fall that produced 23 new or expanded articles on Wikipedia Ukraine.

Since anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry, point out mistakes or improve an article's structure, the argument goes, thousands of reviewers could lighten the load for college professors by helping out.

The one area, critics say, in which this idea may not work is social science.

Launched two years ago, the Wikipedia Education Program encourages professors around the world to assign writing entries as class work.

The program has helped produce nearly 6,000 pages of published content in its first year and almost double that in the second, thanks to a growing flock of volunteers and more than 3,500 trained new editors.

Says the Post, maybe a little hyperbolically:

Twitter arguably started the Arab Spring, but it will be up to Wikipedia to keep it going.

HT: Andy Mabbett