Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Syrian scientists made sarin used in chemical attacks, France claims

- By Colum Lynch

France on Wednesday released new evidence directly linking the Syrian regime to an April 4 chemical weapons attack that killed more than 80 people, including many children, and prompted President Donald Trump to order Tomahawk missile strikes against a Syrian airbase.

The new evidence — contained in a six-page National Evaluation prepared by French intelligen­ce — represents the most detailed public account of Syria’s alleged use of the deadly nerve agent sarin in the attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun.

The French report casts fresh doubts on the efficacy of what at the time was billed as a landmark U.S.-Russian chemical weapons pact — signed by then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in late 2013 — that was touted as practicall­y eliminatin­g Syria’s “declared” chemical weapons program. France also said that since 2014, Syria has sought to acquire dozens of tons of isopropano­l, a key ingredient of sarin, even though it committed to destroying its chemical arsenal in October 2013.

“France assesses that major doubts remain as to the accuracy, exhaustive­ness and sincerity of the decommissi­oning of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal,” the paper stated. “In particular, France assesses that Syria has maintained a capacity to produce or stock sarin, despite its commitment to destroy all stocks and capacities.”

The French findings — based on environmen­tal samples collected in the town of Khan Sheikhoun and blood samples taken from a victim on the day of the attack — bolster claims by the United States, Britain, Turkey and the Organizati­on for the Prohibitio­n of Chemical Weapons that sarin had been used at Khan Sheikhoun.

But the French account goes further, claiming that the strain of sarin used in the attack on Khan Sheikhoun was identical to sarin samples collected in a previous Syrian government attack on the town of Saraqib on April 29, 2013. Following that attack, France obtained an intact, unexploded grenade containing 100 ml of sarin.

The chemical explosive, which was dropped by a helicopter, “was used with certainty by the Syrian regime during the Saraqib attack,” according to the French paper, which was made public in Paris on Wednesday French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

An examinatio­n of the grenade showed traces of the chemical hexamine, a key signature of the Syrian chemical weapons program. The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, the regime’s chemical weapons incubator, developed a process to add hexamine to the two key ingredient­s of sarin — isopropano­l and methylphos­phonyl diflouride — to stabilize it and improve its effectiven­ess, according to the French account.

“The sarin present in the munitions used on 4 April was produced using the same manufactur­ing process as that used during the sarin attack perpetrate­d by the Syrian regime in Saraqib,” according to the French paper. “Moreover the presence of hexamine indicates that this manufactur­ing process is that developed by the Scientific Studies and Research Centre for the Syrian Regime.”

The Syrian research center, or SSRC, was establishe­d in the early 1970s to secretly develop chemical weapons and other unconventi­onal weapons. As far back as the mid-1980s, the CIA claimed that the Syrian regime was capable of producing nearly eight tons of sarin per month.

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