Chemical attack probe aided by presence of victims in Turkey

Investigators have rushed to Turkey to examine survivors of the chemical attack in neighbouring Syria and collect samples that could reveal the nature of the toxins, the means of delivery and, ultimately, who was responsible for one of the war’s most disturbing atrocities.

The victims’ presence in Turkey offers a way around a problem that has bedeviled past investigations and sown confusion for policymakers: limited access to attack sites. The byproducts of the nerve agents suspected in Tuesday’s attack can remain in the bloodstream long after the effects have worn off.

“Whoever wants to find out the truth and the weapon that was used has enough evidence” in Turkey, said Dr. Osama Abo Elezz, a physician from Khan Sheikhoun, the opposition-held town where the chemical attack took place. “This has not happened before.”

But even with the heightened media attention and the anguish the attack has provoked in the highest offices in the U.S. and other Western capitals, the inspectors have been hamstrung by a thicket of rules and precautions that could frustrate even the most determined investigators.

Witnesses described pandemonium at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, where medical staff, terrified of exposure to toxins, donned hulking hazmat suits and pushed victims on gurneys to a decontamination tent. Even second-hand exposure to sarin, the nerve agent suspected in the attack, can produce symptoms leading to death.

In the past, Turkish authorities have not always facilitated weapons probes, according to two doctors who cross regularly from Turkey into Syria to treat patients.