Assad ‘used chlorine and sarin nerve gas to attack Syrian town’

THE world’s chemical weapons watchdog has for the first time formally accused Bashar al-assad, the Syrian president, of using sarin and chlorine gas attacks during his bloody civil war, in a move that may lead to fresh sanctions against the regime.

In a report published yesterday, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it had “reasonable grounds to believe” that the Syrian Arab Air Force used chlorine and sarin gas three times on the town of Ltamenah in 2017.

Fernando Arias, the OPCW director-general, said it was now up to the UN secretary-general and world leaders to decide what the consequences should be.

“Attacks of such a strategic nature would only have taken place on the basis of orders from the higher authorities of the Syrian Arab Republic military command,” said Santiago Oñate Laborde, an OCPW adviser.

Over the past nine years of the civil war, images showing the aftermath of the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons, which is in breach of the Geneva Convention, have shocked the world.

Victims of chlorine and sarin gas attacks suffer agonising pain as they choke to death on fluid in their lungs.

More than 100 people were affected by the chemical strike on Ltamenah, the OPCW said, but it was impossible to verify the victims’ medical records due to the ongoing conflict.

The OPCW relied on eyewitness interviews, satellite imagery and sample analysis to draw its conclusions.

The investigation is the result of fresh powers granted to the watchdog by a UN resolution in 2018 that “put in place arrangements to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic”. Until then, it could carry out fact-finding missions but was not allowed to apportion blame.