U.N. condemns Syria war’s chlorine use
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council on Friday approved a U.S.-drafted resolution that condemns the use of toxic chemicals such as chlorine in Syria, without assigning blame, while threatening militarily enforced action in the case of further violations.
All members of the 15-seat council approved the resolution except for Venezuela, which abstained.
Also Friday, al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate confirmed that its top field commander was killed in an airstrike that targeted a meeting of the group’s senior leadership.
The United Nations resolution follows last month’s condemnation by the world’s chemical-weapons watchdog of the use of chlorine in Syria as a breach of international law. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ fact-finding mission concluded “with a high degree of confidence” that chlorine was used on three villages in Syria last year, killing 13 people.
The organization did not assign blame, but some council members such as Britain and France have blamed Syria’s government for the attacks. They said fact-finding reports linked the chlorine attacks to helicopters and that Syria’s rebels do not have helicopters.
Russia on Friday again expressed skepticism about blam- ing the Syrian government, its ally. Syria denies using chlorine or other chemical weapons and blames “terrorists” for such attacks.
“The Syrian government has nothing to hide,” Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said after the meeting. He also lashed out at some council members for blaming his government for atrocities related to the “so-called chemical issue” and other issues.
“These people are like hyenas. The more they kill, the more they are hungry,” Ja’afari said.
He said Venezuela “did the right” by abstaining.
Venezuelan Ambassador Rafael Ramirez said the council should wait until any investigation into the use of chlorine is complete before taking up the issue. The South American country, which has an antagonistic relationship with the United States, has long defended the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The resolution threatens action over further violations under a council resolution in 2013 that banned Syria’s use of chemical weapons. The resolution also applies to any party in the Syrian conflict, which is about to enter its fifth year and has killed an estimated 220,000 people.
The resolution says such actions should be imposed under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, meaning they could be militarily enforced.
Syria joined the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2013 and declared a 1,300-ton chemical-weapon arsenal that has since been destroyed. But chlorine is not a chemical that has to be declared to the organization because it is also used for regular purposes in industry.
Syria’s move to join the organization followed the threat of U.S. airstrikes over a chemical attack on a Damascus suburb that killed hundreds of civilians. The U.S. and Western allies accused the Syrian government of responsibility for that attack, while Damascus blamed rebels.
Separately on Friday, Abu Anas al-Shami, the spokesman for the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, was quoted on a prominent militant website as saying an airstrike in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib on Thursday killed Abu Hommam al-Shami, described as the group’s “military commander.”
Abu Hommam’s death was first reported a day earlier by Syria’s SANA state news agency and by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The fate of the Nusra Front’s overall leader, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, was not clear, the Observatory said, although there were reports that he had been in the area of the attack.
The jihadi website quotes the Nusra Front spokesman as saying three others were killed in Thursday’s airstrike, including two of Abu Hommam’s bodyguards. It did not provide further information on the identity of the third person who was killed.
It also remained unclear who conducted the airstrike. SANA claimed it was the Syrian military, while activists and the Nusra Front said it was the U.S.-led coalition that was established to fight the Islamic State extremist group in the country.
A news release from U.S. Central Command listed four coalition airstrikes Thursday in Syria but mentioned none in Idlib province.
The Nusra Front also is a rival of the Islamic State, which controls about a third of Iraq and Syria. However, the two militant groups also occasionally cooperate on limited operations.
The U.S. considers the Nusra Front a terrorist organization, and both the coalition and the Syrian government routinely target Nusra positions.