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| This image made from an AP video posted on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013 shows a student wearing a gas mask and protective suit during a classroom session a on how to respond to a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo, Syria. In a disused classroom of a school in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, a group of volunteers learned how to deal with a chemical weapons attack. The drills came amid continued diplomatic wrangling over how to collect Syria's arsenal of chemical and biological agents to prevent any repeat of the August 21 attack outside Damascus that, according to the US, was carried out by Syrian regime and killed more than 1,400 people, including at least 400 children. |
BEIRUT (AP)
-- The trajectory of the rockets that delivered the nerve agent sarin in
last month's deadly attack is among the key evidence linking elite
Syrian troops based in the mountains overlooking Damascus to the strike
that killed hundreds of people, diplomats and human rights officials
said Wednesday.
The Aug. 21 attack
precipitated the crisis over Syria's chemical weapons. The U.S.
threatened a military strike against Syria, which led to a plan
negotiated by Moscow and Washington under which the regime of President
Bashar Assad is to abandon its chemical weapons stockpile.
A U.N. report released Monday confirmed that chemical weapons were used in the attack but did not ascribe blame.
The
United States, Britain and France cited evidence in the report to
declare Assad's government responsible. Russia called the report
"one-sided" and says it has "serious reason to suggest that this was a
provocation" by the rebels fighting the Assad regime in Syria's civil
war.
The report, however, provided data that
suggested the chemical-loaded rockets that hit two Damascus suburbs were
fired from the northwest, indicating they came from nearby mountains
where the Syrian military is known to have major bases.
Mount
Qassioun, which overlooks Damascus, is home to one of Assad's three
residences and is widely used by elite forces to shell suburbs of the
capital. The powerful Republican Guard and army's Fourth Division,
headed by Assad's younger brother, Maher, has bases there.
A
senior U.N. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because some
of this material was from private meetings, said: "It was 100 percent
clear that the regime used chemical weapons."
The
diplomat cited five key details, including the scale of the attack, the
quality of the sarin, the type of rockets, the warheads used and the
rockets' trajectory.
A Human Rights Watch
report also said the presumed flight path of the rockets cited by the
U.N. inspectors' report led back to a Republican Guard base in Mount
Qassioun.
"Connecting the dots provided by
these numbers allows us to see for ourselves where the rockets were
likely launched from and who was responsible," said Josh Lyons, a
satellite imagery analyst for the New York-based group. But, he added,
the evidence was "not conclusive."
The HRW
report matched what several experts concluded after reading the U.N.
report. The U.N. inspectors were not instructed to assess which side was
responsible for the attack.
"While the U.N.
stuck within its mandate, it has provided enough data to provide an
overwhelming case that this had to be government-sponsored," said
Anthony Cordesman, national security expert at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies.
The inspectors
described the rockets used to disperse the sarin as a variant of an M14
artillery rocket, with either an original or an improvised warhead,
which the rebels are not known to have.
There
is no conceivable way to prove the rebels could not have gotten them,
Cordesman said, but he added that the modification of the rockets
pointed to the regime.
The U.N. diplomat in
New York pointed to citations in the U.N. report and a private briefing
to the U.N. Security Council by chief inspector Ake Sellstrom that
reveal the scale of the attack: The seven rockets examined had a total
payload of about 350 liters (about 92 gallons) of sarin, including
sophisticated stabilizing elements that match those known to be in the
Syrian stockpile.
This makes it "virtually
impossible" that it came from any source other than the Syrian
government, the diplomat said, adding that there were likely other
rockets used that the inspectors couldn't get to.
The
diplomat added that the trajectory points directly at known Syrian
military bases. "There isn't a shred of evidence in the other
direction," he said.
Syrian legislator Issam Khalil denied the Human Rights Watch report.
"These
rockets were fired by terrorists in order to draw a military act
against Syria," Khalil told The Associated Press in Damascus. "We
believe that a fair, transparent and objective international
investigation is the only way to specify that side responsible for
firing these rockets."
Russia has been Syria's
main ally since the conflict began in March 2011, blocking proposed
U.N. resolutions that would impose sanctions on Assad's regime and
opposing an attempt to authorize the use of force if Syria does not
abide by the agreement struck Sept. 14 between Moscow and Washington to
rid Damascus of its chemical weapons stockpile.
According
to a top Russian diplomat and a Syrian official, Damascus has turned
over materials to Russia that aim to show the chemical weapons attack
was carried out by the rebels.
The ITAR-Tass
news agency quoted Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as
saying that Syria told Russian officials the material it handed over
shows "rebels participating in the chemical attack," but that Moscow has
not yet drawn any conclusions.
Ryabkov also
told pro-Kremlin broadcaster Russia Today that Russia has submitted to
the U.N. Security Council what Moscow called credible evidence that
suggests the Syrian government did not fire the chemical weapons.
"We
are unhappy about this (U.N.) report, we think that the report was
distorted, it was one-sided, the basis of information upon which it was
built is insufficient," Ryabkov said.
The
reports did not specify the nature of the new material turned over by
Syria to Russia, which Ryabkov said would be closely analyzed.
According
to ITAR-Tass, Ryabkov said Russia was "inclined to treat with great
seriousness the material from the Syrian side about the involvement of
the rebels in the chemical attack of Aug. 21."
U.N.
spokesman Martin Nesirky said the U.N. is checking with Russia's U.N.
Mission to find out exactly what Ryabkov said but "on the face of it,
these reported remarks are an attempt to call into question the
secretary-general's investigation team ... and the credibility of its
thoroughly objective report." He stressed that Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon "has the fullest confidence in the professionalism of his team
and their work and findings."
The chief U.N.
chemical weapons inspector said his team will return to Syria "within
weeks" to complete the investigation it had started before the Aug. 21
attack and other alleged uses of chemical weapons in the country.
Sellstrom
told The Associated Press the team will evaluate "allegations of
chemical weapons use from both sides, but perhaps mainly from the Syrian
government's side."
He said he doesn't
currently think there is a need for more investigations of the Aug. 21
attacks, but said "if we receive any additional information it will be
included next time we report."
The first step
in getting rid of Syria's chemical weapons is for the Organization for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to endorse the agreement reached by
the U.S. and Russia to put its stockpile and precursors under
international control for later destruction. A senior U.N. diplomat said
a U.S.-Russia draft spelling out details of how this will be done is
expected to be circulated to members of the OPCW's executive board later
Wednesday. The board is scheduled to meet Friday to make a decision.
Britain's
U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said the the main purpose of a new
U.N. resolution currently under discussion "is to make the framework
agreement reached between the United States and Russia in Geneva, and
the decision that will be taken by the OPCW Executive Council, legally
binding in a Security Council resolution that is verifiable and
enforceable."
The five permanent members of the Security Council were meeting again Wednesday to try to agree on the text.
Assad
on Wednesday received a U.S. delegation of former members of Congress
and anti-war activists, including former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey
Clark.
In the contested northern city of
Aleppo, a group of volunteers learned how to deal with chemical weapons
attacks in a drill inside a school. Their teacher, Mohammad Zayed, a
21-year-old former chemistry student, helped them put on gas masks and
protective suits.
He also described the effects of various chemical weapons and how to help people with the limited resources available.
Three
gas masks and 24 protective suits were given to them after rebels
gained control of a military base belonging to forces loyal to Assad.
The volunteers are distributing leaflets to residents on how to react to
an attack.
