Seymour Hersh reported in 2014 that the sarin attack in Syria, attributed to Assad's army, was actually a false-flag attack carried out by Turkey in connection with al-Nusra (al-Qa'ida).

He also said that the US had armed Syrian rebels in cooperation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar since 2012, exporting arms from Libya by way of the Benghazi consulate. The US stopped this after the Benghazi consulate was attacked, but the other three countries continued.