Everything we know so far about chemical attacks in Syria: analysis from #Bellingcat
Editorial note. Cooperation between Assad and the Kremlin has once again acquired a characteristic criminal turn. Children and adults in Khan Sheikhun are poisoned with war gases, and Russian officials are mastering new levels of the bottom in lies and tricks. Bellingcat has collected everything that is known about the recent chemical attack in Syria. And we have translated the bulk of the materials for you. Such texts are difficult to read: they are large, stylistically dry and full of details. But this is what real military journalism and real open source intelligence looks like.
Original publications— The Khan Sheikhoun Chemical Attack, The Evidence So Far andWhat does chemistry tell us about the statements of the RF Ministry of Defense about the attack on the "chemical weapons warehouse" in Khan Sheikhun?
Bellingcat, Dan Kashcheta
On Tuesday, April 4, 2017, photos and videos from Syrian sources captured what was later assessed as the use of chemical weapons in the city of Khan Sheikhoun south of Idlib.
Introduction
The first reports of the attack appeared on social media on the morning of Tuesday, April 4, 2017. It has been claimed that the airstrikes in Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib, used a chemical agent that many sources have described as sarin. The chronology of events presented in these sources looked like this.
Translation - “On April 4, 2017, four missiles were fired at Khan al-Shehun as a result of two airstrikes from the Su-22. Civil defense forces were present at the site of the defeat, and their personnel were also injured. More than 200 wounded were taken to hospitals. We do not yet know exactly how many victims were, but according to preliminary estimates - 50 or 60 people. Medical teams took off their clothes from the wounded, washed their bodies with water and handed them over to medical posts. Symptoms are pressing breathing difficulties, yellow foam from the mouth, and subsequently, bloody vomiting. "
1:18 - “Many choking cases are the result of gas attacks. Among the wounded are children and women. More than 70 victims. We do not know what kind of gas we used ”.
Photos and videos from hospitals where victims of the attack were treated were posted online and collected in this playlist along with other related videos. In the video, the victims, including children, have characteristic symptoms - lack of reaction to light, foam at the mouth and convulsions. This is consistent with, but not limited to, the symptoms of sarin poisoning. ( Mlegsenerveepoisonousesubstancesabasicallycausesimilar symptoms - noteaP&M). However, given that Sarin attacks have already occurred in Syria, and their victims showed the same symptoms, some observers have concluded that it was used in this case as well. In the following video (in English), Dr. Shazhul Islam from Binnish Hospital talks about the situation in the institution during the treatment of the victims.
Later, it was also reported that one of the civil defense centers, used as a hospital, in which at that time the victims of the previous attack were rescued, came under attack. This airstrike on a partially underground hospital was filmed.
Both Syria and Russia have denied that chemical weapons were used in the airstrike. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation stated that the cause of the chemical contamination was the hit of a shell in the rebel ammunition depot ( We have placed a separate Bellingcat material with an analysis of this lie at the bottom of the article - P&M note).
Early postsI am
The first message appeared on the morning of April 4. This video, which, according to its author, recorded an airstrike with a chemical component, was uploaded online at 4:59 UTC (YouTube Data Viewer from Amnesty International).
Other photos showing the same location from different angles have been published by news outlets such as Reuters.
Based on these videos and photos, it turned out to be possible to geolocate the funnel.
The geolocation of the crater, combined with the video of the alleged chemical attack, shows that the crater is not visible in the video. In the video, after all, not a chemical missile hit (assuming that this is the only place where a chemical attack took place).
Another lesion site was shown in YouTube channel of the Syrian Journalism Center.
Translation: 2:20 - “Residential areas were attacked today. There are no military bases in the area of the airstrikes. The first rocket struck at 6:30, a little further from here, the second - right here. "
Although the images of the remnants of the rocket were uploaded to the network, it is not yet possible to determine what kind of ammunition was used.
Hospitals
As a result of the attack, the victims were taken to hospitals and clinics, some - 50 kilometers from the impact site. V videos posted as a result of the attack, it is possible to identify at least four different locations where patients were received and treated. These videos have been compiled into separate playlists and marked as hospital A , hospital B , hospital C and hospital D... Most interesting was Hospital B, located in Khan Sheikun itself, which was hit by an airstrike on the same day that the chemical attack took place while treating its victims. This place was used both as a hospital and as a center for local civil defense. The moment of the impact was filmed by local activists.
“According to the Speaker of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, on Thursday, between 11:30 and 12:30 local time (8:30 to 9:30 UCT), a Syrian plane launched an airstrike on the eastern outskirts of Khan- Sheikhun, hitting a large warehouse of ammunition and military equipment of the terrorists. Konashenkov said that the militants transported chemical munitions to Iraq through this warehouse. He also added that there were workshops for the production of bombs filled with toxic substances. He noted that the same ammunition was used by militants in Syrian Aleppo. "
In addition to the purely geographical difficulties of transporting chemical weapons across all of Syria, including territories controlled by ISIS and the Assad government, it is worth noting that the time of the attack is a few hours later than the first appearances of the results of the airstrike on the network. It is also worth noting that the Russian Ministry of Defense has repeatedly fallen for lies and falsification of evidence and should be considered extremely unreliable even when it presents evidence in favor of its position.
Addendum: What does chemistry tell us about the statements of the RF Ministry of Defense about the attack on the "chemical weapons warehouse" in Khan Sheikhun?
In response to allegations of a chemical attack in Syrian Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that a warehouse of toxic substances had been destroyed in that city.
According to the Russian means of objective airspace control, on April 4, from 11:30 to 12:30 local time, Syrian aviation struck in the area of the eastern outskirts of the Khan Sheikhun settlement at a large terrorist ammunition depot and military equipment accumulation.
On the territory of this warehouse there were workshops for the production of land mines filled with toxic substances.
From this largest arsenal, militants delivered ammunition with chemical weapons to Iraqi territory. Their use by terrorists has been repeatedly proven by both international organizations and the official authorities of this country.
From a technical point of view, it seems unlikely that the April 4 chemical exposure was the result of the "destruction of a chemical weapons depot," as the Russian Defense Ministry claims. Until now, binary poisonous substances have been used in the Syrian conflict. These OVs are so named because they are obtained by mixing different components a few days before use. For example, sarin is made by mixing isopropyl alcohol with methyldifluorophosphoranyl, usually also using additives to neutralize the resulting acid. Another nerve agent, soman, is also produced through a binary process. VX is produced in a similar manner, although the process involved is more complex than simply mixing the materials.
There are several reasons for the Assad regime's use of binary poisonous substances. Nerve binaries are designed by the US Army to be safely stored and handled so that nerve agents do not travel around the supply chain ready-made. Some US munitions are capable of mixing such materials in the air after they are fired. For example, the 155mm artillery shell with M687 sarin, the 8-inch binary shell with the VX XM736, and the Bigeye binary air bomb. A lot of time was spent on research and development of these ammunition, and none of them showed good results in practice (this is especially true for the VX). There is no evidence of the development or adoption by the Assad regime of in-flight mixing binary munitions. OPCW inspections and Syria's signature of the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013 uncovered various stationary and mobile installations for mixing binary nerve agents.
Another reason for using binary sarin is that only a few countries have mastered the technology of producing "unitary" sarin with any long shelf life. During the basic chemical reaction for sarin production, one molecule of strong and dangerous hydrofluoric acid (HF) is released for each synthesized sarin molecule. Residuals of this acid will corrode almost any container in which sarin is stored and also rapidly reduce the effectiveness of the sarin. The USA and the USSR have spent significant efforts on solving this problem. They found various ways to separate hydrofluoric acid from sarin using expensive heavy chemical engineering techniques, which, for obvious reasons, are best not described here. The Syrian authorities either failed to develop such techniques, or decided that it was much cheaper, safer and easier to store binary components, mixing them as needed. This is why the OPCW has found mobile mixing equipment. In Iraq under Saddam Hussein, despite serious problems with the shelf life of sarin, it was also not purified from acid.
Even if we assume that a significant amount of the substances used to synthesize sarin were in the same part of the same warehouse (which in itself would be rather strange), the airstrike could not synthesize a large amount of sarin. An air strike on the components of a binary nerve agent cannot serve as a mechanism for its synthesis. To assume this is, to say the least, silly. One of these substances is isopropyl alcohol. As a result of the airstrike, it would immediately burn up, forming a huge fireball, which was not observed at all.
In addition, even if the Syrian military knew that chemical weapons were stored in the warehouse, an airstrike against such a warehouse would be an indirect use of such weapons.
Finally, back to the issue of industrial capacity. The production of sarin requires at least 9 kilograms of substances that are difficult to obtain. Approximately the same amount is required for the production of other nerve agents. Getting any significant amount of nerve agents presupposes a complex supply chain of rare starting components and an industrial base for their production. Are we being asked to believe that the rebel group has spent enormous amounts of money on the creation of production facilities, which for some reason have not yet been noticed or attacked? This possibility seems unlikely.
Bashar al-Assad's opponents could annoy the Kremlin
In response to the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian province of Idlib, the United States fired a total of 59 missiles at a government military base in Homs. American President Donald Trump said that it was Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who was guilty of the tragedy, so the use of military force against him is justified. Meanwhile, an independent investigation into what happened in Idlib has just begun and the culprits have not yet been officially identified. Experts interviewed by MK are confident that Assad is the last one who benefits from gas poisoning the Syrians. Then why did the tragedy become possible? And where did chemical weapons come from in Syria, if international experts reported on their complete destruction back in 2014?
According to various sources, a chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, which is located in Idlib province and is controlled by opposition forces, killed 72 to 100 people. After opening the bodies of the victims of the tragedy, Turkish doctors concluded that they died from the nerve gas sarin, the Turkish Ministry of Health said. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced that it sent experts to the scene to begin gathering facts for an investigation. Independent experts from the OPCW have not yet begun to name the alleged perpetrators of the tragedy.
But the United States has already found them. President Donald Trump said: "On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a terrible attack using chemical weapons on civilians," adding that there is no doubt about it. Therefore, the strike on the airbase, from which the planes with the lethal gas allegedly took off, in his opinion, is fully justified.
“We are confident that the attacks (in Idlib) were carried out from the air by order of the Bashar al-Assad regime and we are also confident that sarin gas was used,” added Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. destruction of Syrian chemical weapons). Either Russia was an accomplice, or it simply is not able to complete the implementation of the agreement. " Moscow, meanwhile, denies Bashar al-Assad's guilt, stressing that the Syrian army simply does not have chemical weapons, as the OPCW confirmed in 2014.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, on the day of the tragedy, Syrian warplanes struck an opposition military depot containing chemical ammunition. Because of this, an explosion occurred, which poisoned local residents.
“In 2013-2014, when the operation to destroy chemical weapons was carried out, the Syrian government controlled much fewer territories than it does now,” Nikolai Sukhov, a senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in a commentary to MK. - Accordingly, some ammunition could remain in the uncontrolled territories. We can say for sure that it is impossible to produce this gas in artisanal conditions. Another option: chemical munitions entered the Idlib warehouse via Turkey, which is among the countries potentially benefiting from this situation. Various factions have accumulated in Idlib, moderate and not. All this is close to the borders of Turkey, therefore, as they say, hangs on its neck, the situation must be resolved. It is possible that they decided to settle it so radically.
I very much doubt that the Syrian Air Force is to blame for the chemical attack. Assad is the last person who benefits from it. After the American administration softened the rhetoric towards him, showed a desire for negotiations, take and spoil everything for ourselves ... let's not assume that the Syrian government is completely idiots.
But it is not possible to check these data now. Therefore, the impatience of the American administration is perplexing. If American missiles hit the chemical bomb depot used by the Syrian government, there would be a result. But it is not there: there are no explosions, there is no cloud of gas, which means that there was nothing there. "
“In the conditions of the civil war, it was very difficult to ensure that all chemical weapons were destroyed,” said political scientist and orientalist Grigory Melamedov. “In addition, it is not known whether Iran has it. In my opinion, after all, the main customer of the operation with the use of such weapons is Tehran, it is beneficial only to him. This may be the most implacable wing in Iran, the guards of the Islamic revolution and the numerous militias that are associated with them - Hezbollah, Shiite militants from Afghanistan, and so on. Because this is absolutely not beneficial to either Russia or Assad. Judge for yourself: the world community has just begun to lean toward recognizing Assad as the legitimate president. Why should he chop off the branch on which he sits himself? But there are forces that are not interested in Russia getting out of this war, so that the Syrian leader again becomes a normal person in the eyes of the whole world.
The tragedy puts an end to the prospects for a peaceful political settlement of the Syrian conflict, at least in the near future. The sixth round of peace talks on Syria in Geneva after this incident will at least be delayed. I don’t want to say that about ourselves, but it turns out that Russia was simply framed. After that, we cannot publicly condemn our own allies. It remains either to say that this was not the case, or to “switch the arrows”, to draw attention to something else ”.
Recall that the most egregious case of the use of chemical weapons in Syria was recorded on August 21, 2013 in the suburbs of Damascus. The victims of the nerve gas sarin then, according to various sources, from 280 to 1700 people. The experts found that the chemical weapons were used by the Syrian government forces. Therefore, the then head of the White House, Barack Obama, threatened Syria with a military invasion. But Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by suggesting the destruction of all chemical weapons in the country. This was done by Russia and the United States under the control of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which in June 2014 reported on the completion of the assignment.
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The world froze in anticipation
New aggravation in Syria, the threat of war between the United States and Russia. What's happening?
American troops in Syria Cpl. Rachel Diehm / ZUMAPRESS.com
The United States and its allies are about to launch a full-scale military operation in Syria against government forces. At the same time, Russia is an ally of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, so the world is afraid of a direct clash between Russian troops and the armies of Western countries. The negotiations at the UN led nowhere. the site tells about the events of the last days and what happened in the last hours.
How did a new exacerbation begin?
The chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma, which is controlled by the Jaysh al-Islam group, was reported on April 7 by several human rights organizations. According to them, Syrian Air Force helicopters dropped bombs with sarin or chlorine, killing at least 60 and injuring about one thousand people.
The United States has blamed the use of chemical weapons on the Bashar al-Assad regime.
US President Donald Trump has promised that Russia and Iran, who support the Syrian leader, will pay a "high price" for this.
“We cannot tolerate such atrocities. This should not be allowed, ”the American leader said during a meeting with members of his administration. The head of the White House stressed that he is considering absolutely all options for responding to the chemical attack in the Duma.
The Russian Defense Ministry and the Syrian government denied reports of a chemical attack in the Duma, calling them a fake and a provocation. The heads of the Western countries did not believe Russia. British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson recalled the unfulfilled Russian commitments of 2013 - to ensure that Syria renounce the use of chemical weapons and completely destroy them in the country.
Helme / ZUMAPRESS.com / GlobalLookPress
A day later, in the Syrian province of Homs, the government's Tifor airfield (T4) was attacked. The Russian military said the air strike was carried out by the Israeli Air Force.
On the night of April 10, an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was held, the topic of which was the state of emergency in the Duma. Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the United Nations, said Washington would retaliate against the attack. It was also indicated that Trump held talks with the heads of France and Great Britain, who agreed on the need to take retaliatory steps in connection with the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
On April 10, it became known that American warships equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles approached the shores of Syria.
During the war in Syria, the incident in the city of Duma was far from the first time that the Syrian opposition and external forces supporting it accused Damascus of using chemical weapons. However, the latest emergency happened against the background of a deepening crisis in relations between Russia and the United States and the West as a whole, which reached a new level in connection with the Skripal case.
What is happening now repeats the situation a year ago. In early April 2017, the United States bombed the Syrian Shayrat airbase over reports of the use of chemical weapons in the province of Idlib. However, there was no evidence of himataka.
What is happening at the UN now?
In order to investigate a possible chemical attack in the Duma, it is necessary to determine the procedure for such an investigation. The United States has submitted its resolution to the UN, proposing to restore the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This mechanism worked in Syria after the use of sarin in the suburbs of Damascus in 2013 and established the involvement of Assad and ISIS forces in the chemical attacks in Syria. However, in 2017, Russia vetoed the extension of this mechanism. Moscow insists that the IDA "covered itself with shame by passing a verdict on Syria without supporting evidence."
“The US delegation is once again trying to mislead the international community and is taking another step towards confrontation by putting to a vote a draft resolution that does not enjoy the unanimous support of the Security Council members,” said Vasily Nebenzya, Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN.
Li Muzi / Xinhua
The UN Security Council voted on the draft proposed by the United States. The resolution was supported by 12 countries - members of the Security Council, Bolivia and Russia opposed. For the US resolution to pass, it had to be supported by representatives of nine countries, but Russia, as a permanent member of the Security Council, used its veto. Earlier, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow insists on an investigation of the incident by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The Syrian army, loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, is accused of using chemical weapons. That Russia, an ally of Assad, could veto the resolution was expected.
The UN Secretary General's special envoy for Syria, Stefan de Mistura, said on Monday that, according to non-governmental organizations, hundreds of people in Duma had symptoms similar to a reaction to the use of chemical weapons. However, the special envoy noted that the UN has no opportunity to verify the reliability of this information.
The resolution, proposed by Sweden and supported by Russia, calls for assistance to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Fact-Finding Mission. Mission experts are to be dispatched to the city of Duma, on the outskirts of Damascus, which has suffered from a recent chemical attack. This, in the opinion of the Russian side, can be done without reviving the construction and installation work.
Li Muzi / Xinhua
The Swedish-Russian draft resolution was supported by five countries, while four members of the UN Security Council, including the United States and Great Britain, opposed. Six countries abstained from voting. At the same time, for the adoption of the resolution, it was necessary to gain nine votes.
After Russia blocked the version of the resolution proposed by Washington, US Permanent Representative to the UN Nikki Haley called on the members of the Security Council to vote against the Russian version or to abstain. “Our resolutions are similar, but there are also important differences. The key point is that our resolution guarantees that any investigation will be truly independent. And the Russian resolution gives Russia itself the chance to choose investigators and then assess their work, ”she said, adding that“ there is nothing independent about this. ”
What will happen next?
It is not clear yet. American warships are located off the coast of Syria. The drafts of both resolutions were rejected by the UN. Now the world froze in anticipation. Interestingly, British Prime Minister Theresa May, despite London's support for the United States at the UN, said the UK needed more evidence of a possible chemical attack in Syria in order to join in striking that country.
May withdrew from the "swift retaliation" as inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) prepare to visit the Damascus suburb, where government forces detonated a chlorine bomb on April 6, according to several non-governmental organizations. There was also information about the use of nerve gas.
Special flight rules have been introduced over the Mediterranean due to possible airstrikes on Syria
French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke about the situation. He clarified that in the event of a military response, the targets will be the chemical facilities of the Syrian authorities, and the strikes will not be aimed at the allies of the Syrian government (read - Russia) or specific persons.
Macron stressed that the response from the allies "will have nothing to do with discussions in the UN Security Council", but will follow after consultations with the United States and Great Britain.
On the night of April 10-11, information appeared that the family of President Bashar al-Assad was evacuated from Syria, but then this information was denied.
Didn't Russia withdraw its troops from Syria?
Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin has several times announced the withdrawal of the bulk of the troops from Syria. However, we are not talking about a complete withdrawal, but only about reducing the grouping, while the exact scale of the reduction is unknown. How many troops were in Syria, how many remained - accurate official data, as far as we know, has not been published.
The Khmeimim military base has been assigned to Russia for 49 years, so in any case, the Russian military will remain in Syria. In addition, according to unofficial data, a large number of Russian mercenaries, employees of semi-legal private military companies, are fighting in Syria.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The press got a photo of a crater in Khan Sheikhoun, in which parts of the ammunition are visible
The deaths of more than 70 people, including children and women, as a result of poisoning with a chemical warfare agent in Syria outraged the international community. The main version, which is being considered in the world press, is the bombing of the Khan Sheikhun village in Idlib province with chemical munitions, which was staged by the aviation of the government forces of Bashar al-Assad.
Russia insists on an alternative version - admitting the fact of the bombing, it states that no chemical munitions were used, and a cloud of deadly gas, probably sarin, appeared after the bomb hit a chemical weapons warehouse belonging to an armed opposition group that was being delivered to Iraq.
Meanwhile, none of the parties provided convincing evidence that they were right. Allegations of the involvement of the Syrian aircraft in the chemical attack are based mainly on eyewitness accounts.
Only one photograph of the explosion site of the ammunition, in which its parts are visible, got into the press. But at the same time, no one has yet identified them as part of a chemical projectile, bomb or rocket.
The Russian defense ministry’s announcement of the explosion of an opposition-owned chemical weapons facility is not supported by any intelligence data, although Russian troops have at least drones capable of aerial photography.
The Syrian military has also denied the use of chemical weapons, claiming that the gas was sprayed by members of an opposition group.
Bellingcat, an international investigation team, began collecting evidence of what happened in the area on the morning of April 4. Based on the report published by the group, it is currently difficult to establish exactly how much ammunition was dropped, whether it was bombs or rockets. Some witnesses say helicopters were involved in the raid.
The report also says that after the civilians were poisoned, airstrikes were delivered to the hospitals where they were taken without the use of chemical weapons.
The Syrian government, however, in recent years has not been recorded or proven to use such a powerful poisonous substance as sarin.
Cautious reaction
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons issued a statement in which it condemned those behind the use of poisonous substances in Syria, but did not point to either side. "The OPCW Fact-Finding Team is collecting and analyzing information from all available sources," the statement said.
Human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have not yet brought charges against any of the parties to the conflict.
However, Human Rights Watch said in a statement that "Syria scrapped its chemical weapons program in 2013 after dozens of people were killed in a chemical attack in a Damascus suburb, probably by government forces."
"But this did not mean that the Syrian government forces stopped using chemical weapons. On the contrary, their use has become regular in Syria. Human Rights Watch has recorded dozens of cases when helicopters dropped chlorine containers," the statement said. It also notes that the use of poisonous substances was also recorded by the militants of the Islamic State group banned in Russia and a number of other countries.
Perhaps the only thing that no one seems to doubt is the very fact of the use of a poisonous substance, the victims of which were civilians, many of whom are children.
Eyewitness accounts
For several years now, Syria has been in a state of the most difficult and bloody civil war, and it is very difficult to obtain reliable operational information from the combat zone. Nevertheless, eyewitness accounts were leaked to the press.
A 14-year-old girl, Mariam Abu Khalil, told the New York Times that she saw a plane drop a bomb on a one-story building. After that, Mariam said, a yellow cloud rose over the site of the explosion, after which her eyes began to burn.
She described it as "fog". The girl took refuge in the house and then saw how people came running and began to help the victims. "They breathed in the gas and died," she said.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption After the civilians were poisoned with sarin, the medical points were hit with conventional ammunition.Hussein Kayal, a photographer at the opposition Idlib Medical Center, told the Associated Press that he was awakened by the sound of an explosion at about 6:30 am. When he arrived at the scene, he did not smell any. He saw people lying motionless on the floor. Their pupils were constricted.
The head of the charity ambulance service in Idlib, Mohammed Rasul, told the BBC about the time of the strike - at about 6:45 am. After 20 minutes, his medical staff arrived at the scene and found people on the street, including children, who were choking on a cough.
The Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, which helps medical facilities in the Syrian opposition-controlled territories, said three of its employees were injured while providing assistance at the scene.
According to the descriptions of the doctors of the Union, the victims had reddening of the eyes, foam came from the mouth, the pupils were narrowed, the skin and lips turned blue, and breathing was difficult until complete suffocation.
Traceshimataki
Reuters circulated a photograph showing a crater from an ammunition explosion. It shows a large splinter, which, however, makes it difficult to judge the type of ammunition and its belonging.
In the past, during chemical attacks using chlorine, as well as after the use of conventional ammunition against civilians or representatives of international organizations immediately after these events, footage with fragments of ammunition appeared in the press, which could be used to determine their type.
For example, after chlorine was used in Idlib province in 2015, Reuters released images of opposition figures showing containers that showed the markings.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption An activist of the opposition squad demonstrates a canister, which, according to the opposition, contained chlorine. This canister, according to the opposition, was used by Syrian troops in Idlib province in May 2015.After an airstrike on a UN humanitarian convoy with medicines and food was carried out near Aleppo in September 2016, representatives of the Syrian civil defense detachment handed over a Russian-made OFAB-250-270 high-explosive fragmentation bomb to the Bellingcat investigation team.
A few days after the shelling of a Damascus suburb in August 2013, a group of UN representatives was admitted to the site with missiles with sarin, which discovered, studied, measured and photographed fragments of missiles, which, according to the group, were indeed loaded with this poisonous substance.
In other words, the presence of ammunition fragments serves as strong evidence of the very fact of the use of ammunition with a toxic substance. In this case, since the fact of the use of aviation in this area is not denied by Russia, and the opposition has no planes or helicopters, this would be serious evidence.
Image copyright Russian MOD Image caption The Defense Ministry released a video showing the military claims an SUV with a mortar following a convoy in September 2016. No footage of the laboratory destroyed on April 5 was shownRussia, in turn, announced that "the Syrian aviation struck a terrorist depot, where there were arsenals of ammunition with chemical weapons that were delivered to Iraq."
"On the territory of this warehouse there were workshops for the production of landmines filled with toxic substances. From this largest arsenal, militants with chemical weapons were delivered to Iraqi territory. Their use by terrorists has been repeatedly proven by both international organizations and the official authorities of this country," the official said Ministry of Defense of Russia Igor Konashenkov.
Russia has not provided any evidence that Assad's army actually bombed the clandestine chemical laboratory. Meanwhile, the Russian group in Syria has intelligence assets, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, at the disposal of the Russian group, the pictures from which could at least serve as an argument in this dispute.
After the bombardment of the humanitarian convoy, the mini-defense showed images taken from a drone, in which a car is clearly visible, towing a mortar along the convoy.
As the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday morning, the Russian military has such materials. "There are means of objective control at the disposal of the Russian armed forces in the course of their operation, which they are carrying out in Syria," he said.
Combat poisonous substance
On Thursday afternoon, Turkish doctors who performed autopsies on those killed in the chemical attack said they were. This statement was the first evidence that this particular gas was used in the attack.
Up to this point, the use of sarin has been talked about at an informal level, and judgments are based mainly on external signs. For example, sarin is practically colorless and odorless (and photographer Hussein Kayal drew attention to this fact).
It is the strongest poisonous substance, British chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told the BBC. Chlorine has been used mainly in Syria so far, he said.
“All of the casualties in Aleppo over the past year, and especially in preparation for the evacuation before Christmas, have been affected by chlorine. Much of it appears to have been airborne, and was sprayed by the regime's [aircraft]. and used chlorine in Aleppo to cause a large number of victims, but chlorine is very different from sarin. By toxicological standards, if we take chlorine per unit, then sarin is 40,000, "he said.
Sarin can be stored in two forms - either in the form of two or more components that can be mixed before use (this is a very difficult task that is performed on special equipment), or in its pure form.
Sarin is an unstable substance and it is very difficult to store it in its pure form. In addition, it is a chemically rather aggressive substance, and containers made of special materials, such as, for example, titanium, are used for storage.
Lev Fedorov, a Russian chemical weapons expert and president of the Alliance For Chemical Safety, told the BBC that under certain conditions sarin can be stored for a long time.
In a September 2013 report by the US Congressional Research Group, it is said that in Syria, sarin was stored in binary form, that is, in the form of two components.
In binary ammunition, the two components of sarin are in separate containers and are mixed after the projectile is fired or a missile or bomb is launched. Such ammunition is usually stored unstaged and component containers are placed in them prior to use.
Could there be sarin in a clandestine factory?
Zarin, as Lev Fedorov said, is very difficult to produce, and it is simply impossible to do it underground, he said.
"It's a daunting task. Some chlorine or phosgene is still all right, but sarin is a very tough task," he said. According to Fedorov, chemists in the USSR after World War II spent several years only transporting sarin production at a chemical plant from Germany and localizing in Stalingrad.
“This does not happen, it was either brought, or it’s fantasies,” he said, answering the question whether the opposition could organize the production of the substance under clandestine conditions, as the Russian Defense Ministry claims.
He did not rule out that someone could "steal the sarin from the Syrian army," but emphasized that this was purely theoretical reasoning and he had no information on this matter. Nor is it in open sources.
In neighboring Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, ammunition filled with sarin was found, which remained in warehouses since the first Iraqi war in 1991.
Iraq was supposed to destroy them, but managed to hide them. In 2004, militants attempted to detonate a 152-millimeter artillery shell with sarin, but an explosive device made on its basis was defused.
Could the Syrian army have sarin?
Even before the outbreak of the civil war, Syria had significant stockpiles of chemical warfare agents, including sarin and VX.
True, as stated in a report to the US Congress, prepared in 2013, the Syrian regime was very dependent on the supply of substances necessary for the production of chemical weapons from abroad.
In 2014, under pressure from the international community, Syria agreed to destroy all stocks of chemical warfare agents and components for their production.
Within six months. There is no unequivocal answer to the question of whether the Syrian military could have retained the stock of components or the substance itself.
It is also unknown whether the opposition units might have had sarin.
Versions
The Syrian government has warplanes, and if we assume that Damascus has stockpiles of chemical weapons, then it could theoretically use them. The facts of Syrian air strikes in this area are confirmed by witnesses, they are not denied in Moscow, the only question is whether they used chemical weapons.
The main disadvantage of this version is the absence of chemical munition fragments on the ground. The only photograph of the crater showing fragments of the ammunition did not allow experts to determine its type.
Igor Sutyagin, senior researcher at the British Royal Joint Institute for Defense Research, told the BBC that, according to him, this can be explained by the use of aircraft pouring devices - special devices for spraying liquid. Some witnesses spoke about the spraying of toxic substances.
According to Sutyagin, the Syrians could produce sarin in a laboratory, and the absence of complex chemical devices as a result could lead to a decrease in the combat effectiveness of the poisonous substance.
"The main difficulty in it is associated with the purification of all those impurities that are present in the resulting product during production," he said.
In addition, Sutyagin believes that the Syrians did not necessarily use chemical weapons - an ordinary container with sarin could be dropped from the plane. This explains the absence of characteristic fragments of ammunition on the ground. However, these containers were also not found.
Syria is often reproached for using poisonous substances against insurgents after its chemical weapons were officially destroyed and under the control of the international community, but no sarin has been used since the attack on the Damascus suburbs.
The second version, put forward by the Russian Ministry of Defense, is that sarin was airborne as a result of the destruction of an underground laboratory and warehouse belonging to the opposition.
The presence of the laboratory is ruled out by expert Lev Fedorov; Igor Sutyagin also considers it unlikely that it is possible to organize production under these conditions in another report by Bellingcat, published on Wednesday evening.
Experts have also criticized the suggestion that the Syrian Air Force could destroy the sarin warehouse. British chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told the BBC that in this case, the bomb would simply destroy the poisonous substance. “If you detonate sarin, you just burn it out,” he told the BBC.
Bellingcat said in a report that if there were binary munitions in the warehouse, the explosion would have burned out one of its components.
"An air strike on the components of a binary nerve agent cannot serve as a mechanism for its synthesis. [...] One of these substances is isopropyl alcohol. As a result of an air strike, it would immediately burn up, forming a huge fireball, which was not observed at all," in the report.
The Syrian army could have used sarin against civilians, but this information has not been finally confirmed, two American officials shared their version with CNN. According to them, the assumption is based on the large number of victims and the symptoms of the victims.
Only chemical analysis can confirm the use of sarin in Khan Sheikhun, since sarin has no color and no distinct odor, Igor Nikulin, a former member of the UN Commission on Biological and Chemical Weapons, told RBC. “The carrier can be anything - it is industrial chemical bombs, and artisanal mines, cylinders with a fuse,” the expert explains.
If evidence is provided that these are industrially produced shells, with terminals and stamps, we can say that this is the work of the Syrian government army. Otherwise, Nikulin points out, it will be about the handicraft production of the opposition.
Government footprints
A spokesman for the nongovernmental Syrian Civil Defense (an organization better known as the White Helmets) told the opposition media center in Idlib that Khan Sheikhun was attacked by government aircraft. Four missiles were fired, including one with a BOV, at residential areas in the north of the city in the early morning, at about seven o'clock.
A source in American intelligence told Reuters about the proof of the involvement of the Syrian Armed Forces. The attack has "signs of action" by the Assad government, he said. "If the Assad regime is indeed responsible for this attack, then, based on the available data, this incident could be the largest such attack since the attack in August 2013 in the suburbs of Damascus," - a spokesman for the intelligence services in an interview with Reuters.
The administration of US President Donald Trump also blamed the Assad regime for the chemical attack, calling the actions of government forces "disgusting." White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Tuesday that the United States is working to establish the circumstances of the incident, but the American administration sees this as a trace of the actions of the Syrian regime. He also noted that the attack was "a consequence of the weak and indecisive" policy of the Obama administration, which in 2012 promised to draw a red line against the use of chemical weapons, but did nothing.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said both rebel commanders and weapons experts agree that evidence so far indicates that the attack was carried out by Syrian government forces, the BBC reported.
The city of Khan Sheikhoun is located in the southern part of the Idlib province. It is controlled by the opposition, including the moderate group Ahrar al-Sham. From the city, the opposition is conducting offensive operations in the province of Hama. Thanks to the latest successes of the opposition groups, the front line moved away from the city for several tens of kilometers. The armed forces of the group in the region, according to the Financial Times, are up to 25 thousand people. Earlier, Ahrar al-Sham joined the ceasefire announced in 2016 in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
Nikki Haley, U.S. Representative to the UN, shows photographs of Syrian victims of a chemical attack (Photo: Bebeto Matthews / AP)
Russia and Syria deny
The Syrian army, in an official statement released by the SANA news agency, denied the involvement of government aircraft in the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhun. According to the military, the army has never used chemical or toxic substances and "will not do this in the future." The opposition's arguments and photographs were called "false accusations" by government forces.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported that Russian aviation did not participate in the attack on the city. According to the official version of the military department, presented on Wednesday by Major General Igor Konashenkov, there was a large depot of opposition ammunition in Khan Sheikhun. According to the Ministry of Defense, on the territory of the military warehouse affected by the Syrian aircraft "there were workshops for the production of landmines filled with toxic substances." These shells in the future were to be transported to the territory of Iraq, summed up the representative of the military department. Konashenkov could not confirm the information about the ammunition depot using aerial survey data.
"Between 11:30 and 12:30 local time, Syrian aviation struck in the area of the eastern outskirts of the Khan Sheikhun settlement at a large ammunition depot for terrorists and an accumulation of military equipment," Konashenkov said to Interfax.
The time indicated by the Russian Ministry of Defense contradicts the White Helmets' data and the testimony of eyewitnesses to the attack interviewed by The New York Times. They told the publication that the air raids began at about seven in the morning. Several hours later, according to witnesses, Syrian aircraft attacked one of the clinics where the victims were receiving medical attention. The wounded were hospitalized in small hospitals and private clinics, as the main hospital in the area was severely damaged by the bombing two days earlier, according to the newspaper.
The UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have found no evidence that the chemical weapons incident in Khan Sheikhoun was the result of an air strike, UN High Representative for Disarmament Kim Won Soo said on Wednesday during his speech at meeting of the Security Council. “According to reports, the attack was carried out from the air and targeted a residential area. However, it is impossible to confirm with certainty how the alleged attack was carried out at this stage, ”he said (quoted by TASS).
He also said that the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission, as well as the UN-OPCW Joint Mechanism to Investigate Chemical Attacks in Syria, have begun collecting information on the incident. Kim Won Soo said both organizations will provide an "independent and impartial" investigation into the Idlib province.
One of the leaders of the Syrian opposition, Hassan Haj Ali, commander of the Idlib Free Army, denied claims by the Russian Ministry of Defense that the attack was allegedly inflicted by the Syrian Air Force on a large opposition ammunition depot, the Arab agency The New Khalij reported. He said that the civilian population knows that the armed opposition has no headquarters or any production facilities in the area. He also added that all opposition groups put together are unable to produce such substances.
Discord Resolution
On Tuesday, the United States, Britain and France submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council on the alleged attack in Syria, as reported by Reuters, citing diplomats. According to the agency, all three countries blame the Assad regime as guilty of the incident.
According to the draft resolution, the Syrian government must provide the Security Council with flight plans and notes made on the day of the alleged attack, and the names of the commanders of the crews who flew out. In addition, the initiators of the resolution demand to provide international inspectors with access to the airbase, from where the government aviation took off. Voting on the resolution may take place as early as Wednesday, April 5, agency sources indicate. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the draft document is "anti-Syrian in nature."
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Assad's allies Russia and Iran "to influence the Syrian regime and ensure that this kind of horrific attack will never happen again." “Russia and Iran also bear a great moral responsibility for these deaths,” he added.
“International law prohibits the use, production and storage of any chemical weapon. Therefore, any use is regarded as an international crime, "says Dmitry Labin, professor of the Department of International Law at MGIMO. He emphasizes that in order to name those responsible, the international community must first create an independent expert group that will investigate and establish the fact of the crime.
Chemical weapons in Syria
The production of toxic substances in Syria, according to non-governmental organizations and the CIA, began in the 1970s-1980s with the participation of French organizations and specialists.
The largest attack using chemical weapons occurred on August 21, 2013 in East Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus. As a result of shelling with nerve-paralytic BOV sarin killed, according to various sources, from 280 to 1700 people. UN inspectors were able to establish that ground-to-ground missiles with sarin were used in this place, and they were used by the Syrian military.
After the attack, then US President Barack Obama announced the possibility of sending troops to Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded with a plan to destroy chemical weapons in Syria. After that, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution No. 2118 on the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons. On October 14, 2013, Syria acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
In October 2013, under the supervision of UN experts and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons began. The expert group consisted of representatives from Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, China, Canada, the Netherlands and Tunisia. On June 23, 2014, the OPCW announced the removal of the last shipment of chemical weapons from Syria.
However, after that, in Syria, the UN and the OPCW used chemical weapons by the Syrian military. For example, Syrian troops used chemical weapons on March 16, 2015 in the village of Kaminas, Idlib province. In another five cases, the organizer of the attack could not be identified.