Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons: Chemical attacks “only occur pursuant to orders from the highest levels of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces”
The Assad regime has rejected conclusions that it carried out two sarin and one chlorine attack on an opposition-held town in northwest Syria in March 2017.
Wednesday’s report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons found Russian-made Su-22 jets dropped sarin on Lataminah in northern Hama on March 24 and 30. The town was attacked with a canister with chlorine, dropped by a helicopter, on March 25. The warplanes all flew from the Shayrat airbase, which also launched the sarin attack on Khan Sheikhoun in neighboring southern Idlib Province on April 4, killing about 90 people and wounding hundreds.
The OPCW’s Investigations and Identification Team summarized, “Military operations of such a strategic nature as these three attacks only occur pursuant to orders from the highest levels of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces.”
See also Syria Daily, April 9: OPCW Blames Assad Regime for Sarin and Chlorine Attacks in 2017
On Thursday the regime’s Foreign Ministry berated the “deceptive” report of the “illegitimate so-called Investigation and Identification Team”. It claimed the “false and fabricated conclusions” sought to “distort truths and accuse the Syrian government”.
The statement was echoed by Russia, the regime’s essential backer, which failed to prevent the OPCW from establishing the IIT in June 2018 and to block the team from delivering its first report
Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said, “The report is misleading and it included fabricated and false conclusions in order to forge the facts and accuse the Syrian government of the incident.”
She said the findings depended on information and data given from White Helmets rescuers, portraying them as a “terrorist organization”.
A Decisive Conclusion
UN and OPCW inspectors have found that the Assad regime carried out at least 33 chlorine and sarin attacks on opposition areas of Syria since 2014.
But Russia and pro-Assad activists have tried to shield Damascus with propaganda and disinformation campaigns.
After the OPCW’s Joint Investigation Mechanism assigned responsibility for the Khan Sheikhoun attack to the Assad regime in October 2017, Russia used a UN Security Council veto to block the extension of the JIM’s mandate.
When Moscow was unable to prevent OPCW member-states from creating the IIT, Russia, the Assad regime, and their supporters vilified the OPCW with almost two years of denunciations. They have included a sustained attempt to deny a chlorine attack on Douma, near the Syrian capital Damascus, which killed 43 people in April 2018.
Douma, the final opposition position in the East Ghouta region, surrendered the next day. Lataminah and Khan Sheikhoun have been overrun by a 10-month Russian-regime offensive in northwest Syria.
OPCW chief Fernando Arias said Wednesday of the report, “It is now up to the Executive Council and the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, the United Nations Secretary-General, and the international community as a whole to take any further action they deem appropriate and necessary.”
Three major issues with this report (which does not provide a chemical or mechanical analysis in the annex):
7.32 “Both the fragment in question (SDS28) and the environmental sample SLS35 showed the presence of sarin”
Sarin degrades rapidly as it is an unstable chemical. There should only be evidence of chemicals (like phosphonic acid) that sarin breaks down into, not sarin itself, especially because of the time taken in obtaining the sample.
7.26 “The IIT, aware of the importance of the chain of custody in this type of investigation, pursued several lines of inquiry in order to establish it. However, in light of the uncertainty on the origin of this fragment, and as the IIT was unable to fully confirm its chain of custody, it did not pursue this second fragment in this area of inquiry”
Evidently,. the OPCW was reliant on a chain of custody (from the rebels and SCD) that was not fully verified.
7.28 “The specialists consulted by the IIT found that the visible characteristics of the fragment in the crater are consistent with a ring-shaped component used to attach the membrane of the M4000.”
What specialists? Who do they work for? Sorry, but just because something is “consistent”with something else, is not evidence that that thing was used. Many conventional bombs have a ring-shaped component too.
Rastgoo (Reza),
1. You clearly do not understand testing for sarin. While the chemical disperses, munitions which have contained sarin can be tested for traces.
2. You clearly do not understand chain of custody, which was established in the case of the fragment which was tested.
3. You clearly do not understand how OPCW works with international specialists in metallurgy and ballistics in the investigation of chemical events.
S.
1. Are you telling me that there were traces of C4H10FO2P (the chemical formula for sarin). If so, which is technically impossible as we are dealing with an energetically unstable molecule, where is the evidence of this?
2. As with the Khan Sheykoon probe, the bomb fragments were handed over by the White Helmets through a chain of custody that could not be fully verified. The OPCW did not collect any data itself, including photographs.
3. The “specialists” consulted should be named and their employers identified. In any case, consistency is not the same thing as certainty.
Why were the chemical and mechanical analysis not disclosed to the public in the annexes?
Interesting comments in the “report” which relied on the testimonies and materials of rebels and their supporters on the ground:
The IIT was informed of reports dated late April 2017 related to the movements of chemicals (including sarin) from militia-controlled areas in Libya, through another State Party, to a plant in the Aleppo countryside specialised in the production of chemical munitions, to prepare them for upcoming battles with the army and against civilians.
This is an important admission that sarin was being smuggled into Syria from Libya for the use by the rebels.
The IIT considered that the alleged incidents in Ltamenah on 24 and 30 March 2017, though earlier in time, could potentially be explained through similar scenarios, including the “staging” of an attack with sarin brought from elsewhere.
This is another admission that the rebels did look to stage scenarios.
This Annex has been classified as “OPCW Highly Protected” and is available to all States Parties in document IIT/HP/001, dated 8 April 2020.
The chemical evidence for the use of sarin has been suppressed and is not available to the public.
.
Tut-tut Rastgoo (Reza),
You left out the next paragraph after your quoted passages on the allegations over movement of sarin from Libya and staged attacks:
“The IIT proceeded with inquiries, including to the Syrian Arab Republic, in respect of these allegations, but did not receive, nor was otherwise able to obtain, any material that would substantiate them.”
(Section 6.29 — https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020/04/s-1867-2020%28e%29.pdf)
Do try harder with your disinformation!
S.
Why would the Syrian authorities have material evidence (as opposed to intelligence reports) of :Libyan chemical weapons in Syria??? They gave up their own stockpile, if you don’t remember.
In any case, no actual scientific evidence is presented in this report that there was a chemical weapons attack. We are just told that there was one.
In Annex 2, the SCD (White Helmets) are revealed as one of the key sources of information for the OPCW’s IIT.
Rastgoo (Reza),
I notice you did not deny your original false claim and deliberate distortion.
The report is based on “scientific evidence” and multiple sources. You can’t wish that away.
If you have a substantial point about the report, please make it. Otherwise, we can put a pin in your denials.
S.