Report Backs Claim Assad Forces Responsible For Deadly Sarin Gas Attack

30 December 2017

Anadolu Agency

Experts from the U.N. and a chemical weapons watchdog are blaming Syria's government for a sarin nerve gas attack that killed over 90 people last April.

Their report, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, says leaders of the expert body are "confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017."

The report supports the initial findings by the United States, France and Britain that a Syrian military plane dropped a bomb with sarin on the town.

Russia on Friday criticized the United Nations report, with a deputy foreign minister saying it contained inconsistencies and unverified evidence.

"Even the first cursory read shows … many inconsistencies, logical discrepancies, using doubtful witness accounts and unverified evidence … all of this is still [in the report]," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax news agency. Ryabkov said other nations were seeking to use the report to "resolve their own strategic geopolitical issues in Syria." Russia would analyze the findings and publish a response soon, he added.

Syria and Russia, close allies, have denied any attack and have strongly criticized the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), which was established by the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to determine responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

The attack in Khan Sheikhoun sparked outrage around the world as photos and video of the aftermath, including quivering children dying on camera, were widely broadcast.

The United States blamed the Syrian military and launched a punitive strike days later on the Shayrat Air Base, from where it said the attack was launched.

Responding to the report, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said: "Today's report confirms what we have long known to be true. Time and again, we see independent confirmation of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime."

Clearly referring to Russia, she said: "In spite of these independent reports, we still see some countries trying to protect the regime. That must end now."

The U.N. Security Council should make it clear that "the use of chemical weapons by anyone will not be tolerated," Haley said.

A fact-finding mission by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons reported on June 30 that sarin was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack and "sulfur mustard" in Um Hosh. But JIM experts had the task of determining who conducted the attacks.

The JIM experts said Thursday they are confident the Daesh extremist group was responsible for an attack in Um Hosh in Aleppo on Sept. 15-16, 2016, that used "sulfur mustard," the chemical weapon commonly known as mustard gas.

The report was issued two days after Russia vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution to extend the mandate of JIM investigators another year after it expires on Nov. 17.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated "his full confidence in the professionalism, impartiality and objectivity" of the JIM and looks forward to the U.N. Security Council's consideration of the report on Nov. 7, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

84 people, including 17 children killed by Assad regime near Damascus, UN says

The World Health Organization says Syrian health officials have reported that 84 people have been killed and another 659 injured over a four-day stretch of intensified fighting in a region near the capital, Damascus.

The U.N. health agency said the casualties occurred between Nov. 14 to Nov. 17 in clashes between opposition fighters and forces that support the Assad regime in the eastern Ghouta region. The area on the outskirts of Damascus has been under a regime siege for more than four years.

Seventeen children and six women were among those killed.

The agency also said in a statement Wednesday that more than 200 operations were conducted in eastern Ghouta despite blockages that have prevented deliveries of humanitarian aid including life-saving medicines, medical equipment, and surgical supplies.

Elizabeth Hoff, WHO's Representative in Syria, said medical evacuations of critically-ill patients are "long overdue."

Civil-defense units reportedly rushed to the scene of the attacks to treat the injured and transport them to lcoal hospitals.

Regime forces have recently stepped up their attacks on Eastern Ghouta, even though the district falls within a network of de-escalation zones -- endorsed by Turkey, Russia and Iran -- in which acts of aggression are prohibited.

Over the course of the past week, regime forces have carried out repeated attacks on the district, leaving dozens of civilian residents dead or injured.

Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating civil war that began in early 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting and more than 10 million have been displaced, according to to the U.N. 

©  EsinIslam.Com

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