Chemical weapons attack latest in litany of Syria atrocities
BEIRUT — With its missile strike on Shayrat air base in central Syria, Washington signaled it had judged President Bashar Assad responsible for the horrific chemical weapons attack in northern Syria that drew international outrage last week. But it is not the first or even deadliest atrocity of the war. Rights groups and many Middle Eastern and Western nations say Assad is responsible for a litany of war crimes in the six years he and his supporters have struggled to extinguish a popular uprising and armed insurgency against his rule.
The violence started early on, with detentions, torture, and summary executions, and escalated to bombardment, massacres, sieges and chemical warfare. Various monitors put the war’s toll at over 400,000 killed. The United Nations has recorded 5 million refugees from the conflict, and says about half the country’s population is displaced within Syria’s borders or abroad.
Here are some of the 6-year-old war’s worst atrocities:
BARREL BOMBS
Though not the deadliest weapon in the government’s arsenal, the so-called barrel bomb is now synonymous with Syria’s civil war. The crude, unguided munition — oil barrels packed with explosives and shrapnel — is emblematic of the government’s determination to brutalize its opponents. Soldiers roll them off helicopters above opposition areas to slam into markets, hospital, schools and military bases below.
BAYDA AND BANIYAS MASSACRES
On May 2 and 3, 2013, government troops and government-backed militias stormed the towns of Bayda and Baniyas on Syria’s coast and, according to a Human Rights Watch investigation, went door to door burning homes and shooting families in cold blood. At least 248 people were killed. The troops were allegedly looking for army defectors and other dissidents.
GHOUTA SARIN GAS ATTACK
On Aug. 21, 2013, exactly one year and one day after then-President Barack Obama issued his “red line” warning against chemical weapons use and transfers, a horrific sarin nerve gas attack killed hundreds of people in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus. Shocking images of residents suffocating in the streets were seen around the world, and one survivor, Kassem Eid, said he saw neighbors dropping dead “like it was judgment day.”
NAPALM-LIKE WEAPONS ATTACKS
Five days after the gas attack on Ghouta, government aircraft bombed a school in the town of Orem al-Kubra, near Aleppo, with a napalmlike weapon, activists reported. Fuel clung to students like jelly, witnesses said, burning skin and flesh. At least 10 people were killed.
THE SIEGE OF EAST ALEPPO
After four months of siege and non-stop bombardment, government forces retook the eastern sector of Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, last December. By the end of the campaign, every medical facility had been bombed at least once, according to the Syrian American Medical Society. More than 20,000 civilians and fighters agreed to evacuate from the city to other opposition areas in northern Syria instead of face the government’s feared security forces; thousands more crossed first into government parts of the city then continued on to opposition-held Idlib and Aleppo provinces.
TARGETING THE MEDICAL SECTOR
International medical charities say Assad’s forces target hospitals, clinics and ambulances in opposition-held areas. Earlier in the conflict, doctors said they were tortured by security forces for helping wounded protesters at anti-government rallies. According to Physicians for Human Rights, government and allied Russian forces have killed 727 medical workers in the course of the conflict.