The Hague/Washington: A report released today by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague (Netherlands) claimed the Bashar Hafez al-Assad regime was responsible for the deadly chemical weapons attack on Douma on April 7, 2018. “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the Syrian Arab Air Forces were the perpetrators of the chemical weapons attack on 7 April 2018 in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic,” it stated.
The report refuted the Russian claim that it was an opposition attack and concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that, around 19:30 local time on April 7, 2018, at least one Mi-8/17 helicopter of the Syrian Arab Air Force, departing from Dumayr airbase and operating under the control of the Tiger Forces elite unit, dropped two yellow cylinders which hit two residential buildings in a central area of the city releasing toxic chlorine killing 43 named individuals and affecting dozens more.
“The use of chemical weapons in Douma – and anywhere – is unacceptable and a breach of international law,” said OPCW Director-General Ambassador Fernando Arias. He added: “The Chemical Weapons Convention was signed 30 years ago – it represents a legally binding commitment of 193 States Parties to ban chemical weapons completely. OPCW’s Technical Secretariat was given a mandate by the Conference of the States Parties in June 2018 to identify the perpetrators of chemical weapons use in Syria. This report delivers on that mandate.”
The report marks the ninth instance of chemical weapons use independently attributed to the Assad regime by the United Nations and OPCW mechanisms. It also points out that the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) received “credible information, corroborated through multiple sources”, that Russian forces were co-located at Dumayr airbase alongside the Tiger Forces. The IIT also obtained information that, at the time of the attack, the airspace over Douma was exclusively controlled by the Syrian Arab Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces.
The IIT assessed physical evidence collected and provided by OPCW experts, States Parties, and other entities. This includes 70 environmental and biomedical samples, 66 witness statements, and other verified data, such as forensic analysis, satellite images, gas dispersion modelling, and trajectory simulations. The evidence was scrutinised by IIT investigators, analysts, and several external independent experts.
Director-General Arias added: “The world now knows the facts – it is up to the international community to take action, at the OPCW and beyond.”
Following the release of the report, Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, United States of America, James Cleverly, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, United Kingdom, Catherine Colonna, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, France, and Annalena Baerbock, Federal Foreign Minister, Germany, jointly condemned “in the strongest terms “the Syrian regime’s “repeated use of these horrific weapons”.
They said they remain steadfast in their demands that the Assad regime immediately complies with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and relevant UN Security Council resolutions. Syria must fully declare and destroy its chemical weapons program and allow the deployment of OPCW staff to its country to verify it has done so.
“We call on the Russian Federation to stop shielding Syria from accountability for its use of chemical weapons. No amount of disinformation from the Kremlin can hide its hand in abetting the Assad regime,” their joint statement said.
They claimed that in the aftermath of Syria’s chemical attack on April 7, 2018, Russian military police helped the Syrian regime obstruct OPCW access to the site of the attack and attempted to sanitize the site. Russian and Syrian troops also staged photographs later disseminated online in an attempt to support its fabricated narratives of this incident.
“We commend the independent, unbiased, and expert work of the OPCW staff, and condemn the use of chemical weapons anywhere, by anyone, under any circumstances. We also reaffirm our commitment to hold accountable the perpetrators of all chemical weapons attacks in Syria and beyond,” they said.
– global bihari bureau
