New evidence of sarin attack found in Syria says watchdog

Traces of sarin were found in samples from a north Syrian town attacked just four days before Bashar Al Assad’s air force dropped a bomb nearby containing the deadly nerve agent and killing more than 80 people, officials said yesterday.

Two laboratories found evidence of the nerve agent in samples retrieved from the town of Ltamenah, where about 50 people were reportedly injured during the attack, according to the chemical weapons watchdog.

Nobody was believed to have been killed.

The town is 20 kilometres from Khan Sheikhoun, which was attacked on April 4 with one of four bombs dropped by an aircraft of the Syrian air force containing sarin, UN investigators concluded last month.

Syria denied it had attacked Khan Sheikhoun with sarin and claimed the gas had been released when its jets targeted a chemical weapons factory. That version of events was ruled out by the UN team.

The finding announced yesterday by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) did not attribute blame for the attack on Ltamenah. But investigators have identified a pattern of use of sarin and other banned chemical weapons by the Assad regime.

Thirty-three chemical weapons attacks have been documented in Syria, with all but six attributed to Assad forces, according to the UN team.

No perpetrator was identified for the others. The finding of the Ltamenah attack was released after a briefing by Ahmet Uzumcu, the head of OPCW, to member states on Tuesday.

“The results prove the presence of sarin or sarin-related chemicals in most of the samples analysed,” the organisation said.

Syria joined the organisation in 2013 under threat of possible US military strikes in the aftermath of a chemical weapons attack on a Damascus suburb. As part of the agreement brokered by Russia, the bulk of Syria’s supplies of sarin were removed from the country.

“For years the Assad regime has used chemical weapons to murder and terrorise innocent Syrian civilians,” said Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations.

“Unfortunately, it’s clear that the Syrian regime not only lied about the extent of their chemical weapons programme, but that they will continue to refuse to cooperate with watchdog organisations like the OPCW.”