2017 chemical attacks on town blamed on Assad

THE HAGUE — The global chemical weapons watchdog issued a report Wednesday blaming the Syrian air force for a series of chemical attacks using sarin and chlorine in late March 2017 on the central town of Latamneh.

The report marks the first time the Investigation and Identification Team, set up in 2018 by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, has apportioned blame for an attack in Syria and will likely lead to fresh calls for accountability for the government of President Bashar Assad.

OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias said it is now up to the organization, “the United Nations SecretaryGeneral, and the international community as a whole to take any further action they deem appropriate and necessary.”

The Syrian government has consistently rejected repeated allegations that it launched chemical weapons attacks during its grinding civil war. It did not immediately comment on the report released Wednesday.

The coordinator of the investigative team, Santiago OnateLaborde, said in a statement the team concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the perpetrators of the use of sarin as a chemical weapon in Latamneh on 24 and 30 March 2017, and the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon on 25 March 2017 were individuals belonging to the Syrian Arab Air Force.”

The OPCW investigative team was established after Russia blocked the extension of a joint UNOPCW investigation mechanism that was set up in 2015 and accused Syria of using chlorine in at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015 and of unleashing the nerve agent sarin in an aerial attack on Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017 that killed about 100 people.

Human Rights Watch praised the OPCW report.