Syria Is Using Chemical Weapons Again, Rescue Workers Say
BEIRUT, LEBANON: Eyes watering, struggling to breathe, Abd al-Mouin, 22, dragged his nephews from a house reeking of noxious fumes, then briefly blacked out. Even fresh air, he recalled, was “burning my lungs.”
The chaos unfolded in the Syrian town of Sarmeen one night this spring, as walkie-talkies warned of helicopters flying from a nearby army base, a signal for residents to take cover. Soon, residents said, there were sounds of aircraft, a smell of bleach and gasping victims streaming to a clinic.
Two years after President Bashar Assad agreed to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, there is mounting evidence that his government is flouting international law to drop jerry-built chlorine bombs on insurgent-held areas. Lately, the pace of the bombardments in contested areas like Idlib province has picked up, rescue workers say, as government forces have faced new threats from insurgents.
The Security Council did condemn the use of chlorine as a weapon in Syria, in February. But with Russia, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, wielding a veto, there was no Council agreement to assign blame.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which monitors agreements on toxic arms, found that chlorine had been used “systematically and repeatedly” in three Syrian villages in 2014, and mentioned witness accounts of helicopter-borne chlorine bombs in its report. But it, too, lacked authorization to say who used them.
Obama said he did not use military action on Syria with regard to his original red-line on chemical weapons is due to the fact that Assad gave up his weapons. Those stockpiles have been eliminated and now he is disputing whether chlorine is prohibited and if the international community says those must be eliminated then he will reach out to Russia to put a stop to it.
Last week, others in Obama’s administration called for an immediate U.N. investigation into the “abhorrent acts” – without saying what, if any, punishment Assad might face if formally blamed for the string of alleged chlorine gas attacks.
One western U.N. diplomat told Fox News the situation has become “unacceptable” in Syria.
“There is mounting evidence of repeated chlorine attacks,” the diplomat said.
Civilians, including children, allegedly have been injured and killed in the latest attacks. In a letter sent last week to the U.N. Security Council from the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, the group cited reports of chlorine gas attacks in the Idlib and Hama areas and urged the creation of a no-fly zone to protect the Syrian people.
“In the past two weeks alone, witnesses and medics on the ground in Idlib and Hama governorates reported at least nine separate instances of toxic chemical attacks — several of them deadly,” the group wrote. “… in each instance, barrel bombs loaded with poisonous chemical substances were deployed from Syrian regime helicopters.”
The U.S. has submitted a preliminary draft Security Council resolution that aims to set up a mechanism for determining who is to blame and to hold them accountable.
A U.S. official told Fox News the Security Council is overdue in addressing “the need to determine who is responsible” for the attacks. “Doing so is critical to getting justice for the Syrian people,” he said.
