“The Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhoun”


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US’s Tillerson — Assad Has No Place In Country’s Future


The UN has formally blamed the Assad regime for a sarin attack on a town in northwest Syria in April, killing at least 92 people and wounding hundreds.

An inquiry by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was presented to the Security Council on Thursday, despite Russian threats to block the renewal of the investigation.

“The Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April 2017,” the report from the UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism said.

Created in 2015 by the Security Council, the JIM concluded last year that the Assad regime carried out three chlorine attacks in northwest Syria from spring 2014. However, as reports circulated that it would make its first attribution of blame in a sarin attack, Russia indicated that it would not renew the JIM’s mandate when it expired in November, a warning that it carried out with a veto earlier this week of a Council resolution.

The OPCW had also found that sarin was used in the August 2013 attacks that killed at least 1,400 people near Damascus, but it did not have a Council mandate to assign responsiblity.

This summer the OPCW said “sarin or a sarin-like substance” was used on Khan Sheikhoun. Witnesses, radar tracking, and ground evidence pointed to a Russian-made Su-22 jet dropping a chemical canister on the town early on the morning of April 4.

“The continuing use of chemical weapons, including by non-State actors, is deeply disturbing,” the report said. “If such use, in spite of the prohibition by the international community, is not stopped now, a lack of consequences will surely encourage others to follow.”

Bashar al-Assad to US interviewer Barbara Walters in 2011, “The UN is a game you play. It doesn’t mean you believe in it.”


“Bread Crisis” in Besieged East Ghouta Near Damascus

Opposition activists say there is a “bread crisis” in the East Ghouta area near Damascus, as the Assad regime maintains its siege despite a Russian-backed de-escalation zone.

The activists said most bakeries have shut since Wednesday because of a shortage of supplies. With a subsidy program suspended, the price of 750 grams (1 pound) of bread rose to about 1500 SYP (almost $3).

The reigme has repeatedly denied permission to the UN and other agencies to bring in assistance, despite the sieges being discussed in talks both in Geneva and the Kazakh capital Astana.

Meanwhile, pro-Assad forces continue their shelling of the area, including the town of Douma: