Syria was pressed to join the Chemical Weapons Convention in September by its close ally Russia after a deadly chemical weapons attack that the West blamed on Damascus. Russia has sharply criticized the OPCW and its investigators, accusing them of factual and technical errors and acting under pressure from Western nations.
The Russian ambassador said he was surprised that Arias expressed surprise that Syria was not cooperating with the OPCW investigation team charged with determining responsibility for chemical attacks. You cannot expect that Syria will be cooperating with it.
The United States, once again, calls for justice and accountability as critical components to help move Syria towards a political resolution to the conflict. The Syrian government denies ever using chemical weapons, and its ally Russia says it has evidence that the incident was staged with the help of the UK.
In February, forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad launched an assault on the Eastern Ghouta that reportedly left more than 1, civilians dead. In March, troops split the region into three pockets - the largest of which was around Douma, home to between 80, and , people. Facing defeat, rebel groups in the other two pockets agreed to be evacuated to northern Syria.
But the group controlling Douma, Jaysh al-Islam, continued to hold out. On 6 April, after negotiations with the government stalled, air strikes resumed.
The bombardment continued for a second day, with dozens of people reportedly killed or injured by conventional munitions before the suspected chemical attack. Activists from the Violations Documentation Center VDC , which records alleged violations of international law in Syria, reported two separate incidents of bombs believed to contain toxic substances being dropped by the Syrian Air Force.
It cited a member of the Syria Civil Defence, whose rescue workers are widely known as the White Helmets, as saying he smelt chlorine in the air after the strike, but that he could not determine its source.
The VDC said the second incident took place not far to the east, near Martyrs' Square, at approximately At , more than patients - most of them women and children - were brought to medical facilities with symptoms indicative of exposure to a chemical agent , according to the Syria Civil Defence and the Syrian American Medical Society SAMS , which supports hospitals in rebel-held areas.
The patients showed signs of "respiratory distress, central cyanosis [blue skin or lips], excessive oral foaming, corneal burns, and the emission of chlorine-like odour", a joint statement issued on Sunday said. One woman who died had convulsions and pinpoint pupils. Rescue workers searching homes in the affected area also found the bodies of people with oral foaming, cyanosis, and corneal burns, the statement added.
People were treated for breathing difficulties and irritation of the eyes following the first, the UOSSM said. After the second, patients were brought to hospital smelling strongly of a chlorine-like substance and presenting symptoms that included cyanosis, foaming of the mouth, and cornea irritation, it added.
A medical student working at a hospital told the BBC he had treated a man who died. His heart was very slow. Then he coughed blood into his mouth as well," he said. Two videos circulated by the opposition activist group Douma Revolution showed what it said were the bodies of children, women and men found in one block of flats , which is believed to be located south-west of Martyrs' Square.
Some had foam coming out of their mouths and noses. Important: video from 9 April, pm showing presence of chemical gas canister in Douma. Same location as video of casualties. Activists also posted a video which they said showed a yellow industrial gas cylinder on the balcony of the same block of flats.
One end of the cylinder was lying in a crater-like opening in the reinforced concrete floor. A second gas cylinder was filmed on the bed of a top-floor flat to the south-west, below a crater-like opening in the concrete roof.
The World Health Organization said on 11 April that it had received reports from its local "health cluster partners" of 43 deaths related to symptoms consistent with exposure to highly toxic chemicals". One person was declared dead on arrival at a hospital, and another six died while receiving treatment, they added. An earlier, now deleted tweet by the Syria Civil Defence put the number dead at more than On 9 April, it revised down the figure to at least It said they included 21 who died as a result of suffocation, but that it was unable to identify the cause.
The British investigative journalism website, Bellingcat, said it had counted at least 34 bodies in the two videos circulated by Douma Revolution. Bellingcat also assessed that the block of flats near Martyrs' Square where the bodies were filmed was visited by Russian military personnel on 9 April.
The Syria Civil Defence and SAMS said the day after the incident that they believed those who died suffocated as a result of exposure to toxic chemicals, most likely an organophosphate - a compound grouping associated with pesticides and nerve agents, such as Sarin. The United States attributes more than 50 instances of chemical weapons use to the Assad regime, mostly launched from aircraft and targeting civilians in residential neighborhoods, markets, and hospitals.
Collaboration between Iranian proxies and Damascus in weapons production is not unheard of. In the report to Congress obtained by Foreign Policy , the State Department warned that Iran was also exploiting the Syrian war to build up a coterie of multinational militia forces along border crossing routes and to fly armed drones into nearby Israel. One former Trump administration official said the United States has greenlit Israeli airstrikes inside Syria targeting Iranian efforts to house missile facilities near its border, considered a red line for Israel.
Concerns about Iranian missile sites have only grown, officials and diplomatic sources said, as Iran has stepped up efforts to produce precision guidance kits on Syrian soil that can increase the accuracy of short-range missiles fired at Israel. Those are two very different threats.
Kimball said it would be difficult for nongovernmental organizations to independently confirm whether Assad was taking steps to rebuild his chemical weapons program. But former officials said the Trump administration had to balance its desire to strike a blow against the Syrian regime with concerns about collateral damage on a crowded battlefield.
But even before the strikes, Western intelligence agencies and international weapons inspectors long suspected that Assad hid some stores of chemical weapons after declaring he had eliminated the entire program as part of a pact brokered by the United States and Russia in Those concerns have been repeatedly reinforced by persistent reports that Syrian forces continue to fire munitions filled with sarin and chlorine at civilian towns in rebel-controlled territory.
There have been indications that Syria has sought to reconstitute its chemical weapons program. For instance, France issued a statement in April claiming that Syrians were trying to acquire stores of isopropanol, a chemical precursor used in the production of sarin. This year, a U.
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