The
Syrian air force used deadly chemical weapons in three separate attacks
in March 2017 on the central town of Ltamenah that affected a total of
at least 106 people, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW) said in a report on Wednesday.
The 82-page report is the first from an OPCW Investigation and Identification Team (ITT)
that is tasked with identifying the perpetrators of the use of chemical
weapons in Syria’s brutal civil war, now in its tenth year.
“Military operations of such a strategic nature as these three
attacks only occur pursuant to orders from the highest levels of the
Syrian Arab Armed Forces”, the report stated.
It added, however, that the ITT – which began its work in June 2019
and which, despite requests to the Syrian authorities, was unable to
gain access to the sites involved – could not ascertain the chain of
command that was behind the attacks.
It said that there are “reasonable grounds” to assume that a Su-22
fighter-bomber from the 50th brigade of the 22nd Air Division of the
Syrian Arab Air Force dropped an M4000 bomb containing sarin on southern
Ltamenah on 24 March 2017, affecting at least 16 people.
The following day, it continued, a Syrian air force helicopter from
the Hamas air base dropped a cylinder onto the Ltamenah hospital that
broke through the roof, ruptured and released chlorine, affecting at
least 30 persons.
Then on 30 March 2017, it continued, another aircraft, also belonging
to the 50th Brigade of the 22nd Air Division, dropped a bomb containing
sarin on southern Ltamenah, affecting at least 60.
“As the investigation progressed, and various hypotheses considered,
the IIT gradually came to these conclusions as the only ones that could
reasonably be reached from the information obtained”, the report said.
Syria is among the 193 States parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and their precursors.
The OPCW, based in The Hague, administers that treaty, which is a key part of the global disarmament architecture.
The destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile, overseen jointly
by the OPCW and the United Nations, was declared completed in 2014. But
an OPCW Fact-Finding Mission later confirmed with “high degree of confidence” that chlorine and mustard gas have been used as weapons in Syria.
The ITT’s mandate is to establish the facts behind incidents
involving the use or likely use of chemical weapons in Syria for which
the OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism did not reach a
final conclusion.
It is neither a judicial body with the authority to assign individual
criminal responsibility, nor does it have the power to make final
findings of non-compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism was established by the
Security Council in August 2015 to identify the perpetrators of chemical
weapon attacks confirmed by the Fact-Finding Mission. Its mandate
lapsed in November 2017 after the Russian Federation vetoed its renewal.
US Dept. of Transportation
The
US Vessel Cape Ray, on which all 581 metric tonnes of a precursor
chemical for sarin gas were removed from Syria and safely destroyed as
the ship sailed in international waters in 2014.
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The UN Security Council
met behind closed doors on Wednesday, to discuss the latest findings of
the global chemical weapons watchdog in Syria, which concluded that
there were “reasonable grounds” that a chemical attack took place during
the crucial battle for control of Eastern Ghouta, last April.
As inspections and investigations continue
into several reported instances of chemical weapons use against
civilians in Syria, the United Nations High Representative on
Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, told the Security Council on Monday that much remains to be done to end their use, and called for international unity.
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