The report by a fact-finding mission of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which deals with investigating the use of chemical weapons, includes eyewitness accounts of helicopters dropping barrel bombs with toxic chemicals.
Witnesses reported hearing helicopters before the attacks.
Al Jazeera's diplomatic editor James Bays, reporting from the UN, said that western members of the UN Security Council blamed the Syrian authorities for the attacks as only they had access to helicopters.
- US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power tweeted that "32 witnesses saw or heard sound of helicopters as bombs struck; 29 smelled chlorine. Only Syrian regime uses helos ."
It focuses on three Syrian villages, two in Idlib and one in Hama, where it says there is a "high degree of certainty" chlorine gas was used against the Syrian people.
The findings are consistent with two previous reports by the mission.
After a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council on the progress in destroying Syria's chemical weapons programme, Power said the new report added credence to allegations that the Syrian government used chlorine gas as a weapon in its four-year-old civil war after pledging to give up its toxic arsenal.
The effort to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons programme was launched after a sarin gas attack on August 21, 2013 that killed hundreds of civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.
President Bashar al-Assad's government and rebel forces blamed each other for the Ghouta strike and other chemical weapons attacks, though Western government's blame Assad.
Damascus joined the OPCW, without admitting responsibility for Ghouta, after the United States threatened military intervention.
After briefing the 15-nation Security Council, UN disarmament chief Angela Kane told reporters the OPCW mission was still trying to clarify gaps in Syrian chemical weapons declaration and hoped to destroy all remaining production facilities by June.
[aljazeera.com]
7/1/15
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Die Organisation für das Verbot Chemischer Waffen (OPCW) hält einen Einsatz von Chlorgas bei Angriffen auf drei syrische Ortschaften im Jahr 2014 für weitgehend erwiesen....
ReplyDeleteDie Vorwürfe ließen sich "mit großer Sicherheit" bestätigen, hieß es in einem Untersuchungsbericht der Organistaion, der dem UN-Sicherheitsrat zur Diskussion vorlag.
Untersucht wurden Angriffe ab April auf die nordsyrischen Ortschaften Talmenes und Al Tamana in der Provinz Idlib sowie Kafr Sita in der Region Hama. Den Erkenntnissen zufolge wurden 13 Menschen dabei getötet, 350 bis 500 Menschen verletzt................http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/syrien-245.html
7/1/15