France has no doubt sarin attack came from Assad

The French government released a scathing report this past week on the deadly sarin attack in Syria. The assault bears “the signature” of President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons program, researchers found.

It’s confirmation of something the international community long suspected — that the Syrian government was behind the attack on Khan Sheikhoun, in the northern province of Idlib, Syria, that killed at least 86 people and injured dozens more. Gruesome images of children convulsing and foaming at the mouth stirred U.S. President Donald Trump to launch a military strike a few days later.

“There is no doubt about the use of sarin,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said. “The responsibility of the Syrian regime can no longer be doubted.”

The Assad government did not comment directly on the French report, but previously denied responsibility for the attack in early April. A deal brokered in 2013 by Russia and the United States called for the destruction of all of Syria’s chemical stockpile.

The French report also offers a window into how researchers can make assessments on the use of chemical weapons, particularly when they can’t visit the site in person. That’s the case in Syria, where few foreigners travel freely.

France said its researchers used evidence such as blood samples from those exposed to the nerve agent, as well as analysis from items carried from the village. The report said it found hexamine, a hallmark of sarin produced by the Syrian government.

“In situations where we can’t get on the ground, we have to rely on our network of contacts inside the country,” said Lama Fakih, a deputy director in Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. The organization will soon release its own report on the attacks.

In practice, that means a couple of things: reaching out to a wide variety of people in Syria, including witnesses of the strike and those who might have been close by. Fakih said her researchers ask each source to recount what they saw, and they press on the details. What color was the smoke? What sound did the bomb make? Did they smell or taste anything unusual?

Everything, Fakih said, is verified by a couple of different sources. The information is then brought to weapons experts, who use these clues to figure out what kind of weapon was used. “We try to reach out to as many people as possible,” Fakih said. “Then we really do interrogate what they’re saying to see if it stands up.”