Syria and Islamic State blamed for chemical attacks

The U.S. and its Western allies have defined the use of chemical weapons in Syria as a red line and a clear violation of Security Council resolutions banning Syria from deploying them. Those measures usually mean sanctions, and Chapter 7 can be militarily enforced.

A US -led military intervention in Syria looked to be on the cards in 2013 until Assad agreed to hand over the country’s chemical weapons stockpile.

“We’ve been pleased that the Assad regime’s declared weapons stockpile has been rounded up” and destroyed, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Wednesday.

While the report’s contents hadn’t previously been announced, officials from the USA and other countries who received it have discussed parts of it publicly.

France’s U.N. Ambassador Alexis Lamek said the U.N. Security Council must take action against the perpetrators based on the final report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism.

Diplomats said the JIM is expected to continue its investigation into reported cases of chemical weapons use in Syria.

“The Secretariat considers that numerous explanations provided by the Syrian Arab Republic are not scientifically or technically plausible”, OPCW Director General Ahmet Uzumcu said in the report.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the report will be made public after the 15-member Security Council convenes to discuss the it next week.

Russia, a close ally of Syria, has blocked sanctions and other council action against President Bashar al-Assad’s government, but Moscow supported the establishment of Jim.

“Without accountability, the cycle of abuses in Syria by all parties to the conflict – whether by chemical or conventional weapons – will continue unabated”, he said.

The inquiry found there was sufficient information to conclude that Syrian Arab Air Force helicopters dropped devices that then released toxic substances in Talmenes on April 21, 2014 and Sarmin on March 16, 2015, both in Idlib governorate.

It also found that Islamic State jihadists had used mustard gas in an attack on the town of Marea in northern Aleppo province in August 2015, according to the confidential report seen by AFP. Damascus rejects the allegation, saying the attack was carried out by militants operating inside the country to draw in foreign intervention. Findings in three further cases were inconclusive. The committee recommended that several other incidents be investigated as the committee members suspect that chemical weapons were also used against civilians during them.