Italian journalist Domenico Quirico and Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin da Prata, who were kidnapped in Syria in April and released five days ago , have said in subsequent interviews that they believed the rebels were responsible for the gas attack .The two who described themselves as " fierce opponents" of Assad had originally visited Syria as supporters of what they saw as a legitimate uprising against the Syrian regime . The men were obviously deeply traumatized after being "treated like animals" by their hosts-turned-kidnappers .But their reports of an overheard conversation between their captors conducted in English on Skype and indicating that the rebels launched the attack to prompt Western forces to intervene , should in my opinion be given at least as much credibility as the unsupported assertions coming from the likes of John Kerry.