Syrian Civil War: Chemical Weapons Used With Impunity

Samples being collected from the site of the alleged sarin gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun. Foreign Policy

Sameer Arshad Khatlani 

At least 70 people died in the fresh chemical attack blamed on Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syrian rebel-held town of Douma on April 7. The attack preceded an agreement the regime reached with the rebels for handing over the town to the Syrian forces on Sunday. It came a year after Assad was accused of using sarin nerve gas to kill over 80 people in rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017. The attack has once brought into question Syria’s compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention. Assad had signed the convention following an August 2013 chemical attack and pledged to destroy his stockpiles and production facilities.

An Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) analysis of samples taken from three victims and seven survivors in Khan Sheikhoun confirmed the doubts over the compliance. It concluded that the victims and survivors had been exposed to sarin or a similar substance. OPCW head Ahmet Uzumcu insisted the analytical results were incontrovertible while a French intelligence report corroborated them. The report confirmed the presence of sarin, diisopropyl methylphosphonate, and hexamine based on an analysis of environmental samples from Khan Sheikhoun. The US rained 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles -- in its first airstrike in Syria since the beginning of the civil war -- on Shayrat airbase in response to the Khan Sheikhoun attack. The Syrian regime was said to have carried out the attack from the base. The missiles fired from two warships -- USS Ross and USS Porter -- in the Mediterranean killed at least seven people. The US had earlier refused to respond militarily when a chemical attack killed over 1,400 people in Ghouta in August 2013. Washington instead struck a deal with Assad’s ally, Russia, forcing Syria to give up its chemical weapons. The regime also pledged to stop making weapons of mass destruction as then US President Barack Obama had declared chemical weapons’ use a “red line”.

The US rained 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles on Shayrat airbase in response to the Khan Sheikhoun attack. Los Angeles Times

The UN confirmed sarin had been used in Ghouta. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had described the attack as a “war crime”. A UN report called it the “most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since (Iraqi dictator) Saddam Hussein used them” in 1988. The Washington Post quoted a US intelligence assessment suggesting “relatively controlled use of chemicals” in recent months had “become part of the normal military strategy whenever government forces were unable to push back rebel offensives or breakthrough defensive fortifications”. 

Then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had described the Khan Sheikhoun attack as a war crime. UN

In February, the Atlantic magazine cited the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria saying “bombs allegedly containing weaponized chlorine have been used in the town of Saraqeb in Idlib and Douma in eastern Ghouta.” The New York Times cited a confidential UN and international chemical weapons monitor report in August 2016 and reported Syrian military helicopters had dropped bombs containing chlorine in at least two attacks in 2014 and 2015. Syria is believed to have largely destroyed tons of sarin, mustard gas, and other chemical weapons. It has fallen back on chlorine since the regime had not listed it among the chemicals used to make weapons. Experts say it is easier to possess chemicals like chlorine since they have non-weapon uses like water purification. 

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Lack of effective sanctions and the US flipflops have been blamed for emboldening the regime. Russia has blocked attempts to hold Syria accountable as a veto-wielding permanent UN Security Council member. Moscow has turned the tide turn in Assad’s favour since throwing the weight of its military might behind him since 2015 when he had no control over swathes of the Syrian territory. Assad has strengthened his position since the US launched the military strikes in April last year with the defeat of the IS. Russia had denounced the strikes as “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law and under a false pretext”. It had threatened to snap cooperation with US forces in Syria and vowed to strengthen Syrian air defences. Russia manages the airspace in western Syria and has deployed advisers at Syrian airbases apart from providing military and diplomatic cover to the regime. 

Russia has blocked attempts to hold Syria accountable as a veto-wielding permanent UN Security Council member. Reuters

Chemical weapons were used in World War I and II, the Iran-Iraq conflict in the 1980s, etc. But never has anybody been brought to justice for their use. Chemicals have been used as weapons of war for centuries. They were once used for making poisoned arrows. Germany used chlorine in April 1915 against French Algerian troops during the first world war in Belgium. According to the OPCW, chemical agents killed an estimated 100,000 people in the war, prompting the adoption of the Geneva Protocol in 1925. The protocol banned the use of biological and chemical weapons in war.

Sameer Arshad Khatlani has been a journalist for over a decade. He was a Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, India's most influential newspaper known for its investigative journalism, until June 2018. Khatlani began his career with the now-defunct Bangalore-based Vijay Times in 2005 as its national affairs correspondent. He joined the Times of India, one of the world's largest selling broadsheets, in 2007. Over the next nine years, he was a part of the paper's national and international newsgathering team. Khatlani has reported from Iraq and Pakistan and covered elections and national disasters. He is a fellow with Hawaii-based American East-West Center (EWC). The US Congress established the EWC in 1960 to promote better relations and understanding with Asian, and the Pacific countries through cooperative study, research, and dialogue.

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