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United Nations accuses Syrian government of April sarin attack
There are only two credible scenario's here.
(1) The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was deceived by the government of Bashar Assad when it declared that the last of Syria's chemical weapons had been destroyed by shipboard incinerators on 23 June 2014.
(2) Bashar Assad allies Russia, Iran/Hezbollah has replenished Syria's destroyed arsenal of the deadly sarin chemical weapon.
By Louisa Loveluck September 6, 2017
Some of the victims in what UN investigators said was a chemical attack by the Syrian military in April in Khan Sheikhoun. AP.
BEIRUT — United Nations investigators formally accused the Syrian government Wednesday of using the banned nerve agent sarin in a deadly chemical weapons attack in April that left dozens of civilians dead and hundreds more wounded. The daybreak attack, the investigators said in a report, was one of more than 20 government assaults involving chemical weapons since March 2013, most of them targeting families with no part in the conflict. The commission’s report marked first time that a U.N. body has explicitly accused the Syrian government of using sarin, a chemical that pushes the nervous system into overdrive and can kill in minutes. Video footage from the scene of the attack on the northern village of Khan Sheikhoun showed men, women and infants convulsing uncontrollably. In many cases, they had no idea what had hit them — sarin is colorless, odorless and tasteless.
The attack killed at least 83 people, dozens of them women and children. According to investigators, some died in their beds. A single mother who had left her house early to work said she returned to find all of her four children dead. Images of the youngest casualties are believed to have figured in President Trump’s calculation to order missile strikes on a Syrian government airstrip days later, marking the first direct American military intervention against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian government and its Russian backers had insisted that the Khan Sheikhoun attack was the fault of opposition forces in the area, or that it was entirely fabricated. The inquiry found no supporting evidence for either claim. Despite an internationally backed effort to remove the Syrian government’s chemical weapons stockpiles, U.S. intelligence officials believe that it retains a significant quantity that could still be used for attacks on civilians.
There are only two credible scenario's here.
(1) The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was deceived by the government of Bashar Assad when it declared that the last of Syria's chemical weapons had been destroyed by shipboard incinerators on 23 June 2014.
(2) Bashar Assad allies Russia, Iran/Hezbollah has replenished Syria's destroyed arsenal of the deadly sarin chemical weapon.