Mounting proof nerve gas was used in air strike
BEIRUT — Diplomats at the U.N. Security Council sparred Wednesday over whether to hold President Bashar Assad’s government responsible for a chemical weapons attack that killed more than 80 people in northern Syria, while U.S. intelligence officials, Doctors Without Borders and the U.N. health agency said evidence pointed to nerve gas exposure.
The Trump administration and other world leaders said the Syrian government was to blame, but Moscow, a key ally of Assad, said the assault was caused by a Syrian air strike that hit a rebel stockpile of chemical arms.
Early U.S. assessments showed the use of chlorine gas and traces of the nerve agent sarin in the attack Tuesday that terrorized the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, according to two U.S. officials who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
Israeli military intelligence officers also believe Syrian government forces were behind the attack, Israeli defense officials said. Israel believes Assad has tons of chemical weapons still in his arsenal, despite a concerted operation three years ago by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to rid the government of its stockpile, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the media. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also blamed the Syrian government for the attack.
In Khan Sheikhoun, rescue workers found terrified survivors still hiding in shelters as another wave of air strikes battered the town Wednesday. Those strikes appeared to deliver only conventional weapons damage.
The effects of the attack overwhelmed hospitals around the town, leading paramedics to send patients to medical facilities across rebelheld areas in northern Syria, as well as to Turkey. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the toll at 86 killed.
Victims of the attack showed signs of nerve gas exposure, the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders said, including suffocation, foaming at the mouth, convulsions, constricted pupils and involuntary defecation. Paramedics were using fire hoses to wash the chemicals from the bodies of victims.
Medical teams also reported smelling bleach on survivors of the attack, suggesting chlorine gas was also used, Doctors Without Borders said.
The magnitude of the attack was reflected in the images of the dead — children piled in heaps for burial, a father carrying his lifeless young twins.
The visuals from the scene were reminiscent of a 2013 nerve gas attack on the suburbs of Damascus that left hundreds dead and prompted an agreement brokered by the U.S. and Russia to disarm Assad’s chemical stockpile. Western nations blamed government forces for that attack.
At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley warned the Trump administration would take action if the Security Council did not in response to the attack.