The OPCW should have initially been on the ground the day before the
'coalition of the willing' decided to blow things up.
You can have a shufty at these in the meantime while you're waiting:
The Week – July 9th 2014 – HEADLINE:
UK firms ‘sold chemical weapons ingredients to Syria’
“
British companies supplied ingredients for the production of the deadly nerve agent sarin to Syria in the 1980s, a secret Foreign Office document obtained by Newsnight has revealed.
Sarin has been linked to several attacks during Syria’s three-year civil war, including last year’s deadliest, in which almost 1,500 people were killed, including 426 children.
The report names the UK as the sole supplier of the three key ingredients used to produce sarin; dimethyl phosphate (DMP), trimethyl phosphate (TMP) and hexamine
. These three chemicals are regarded as the “building block” of sarin.
Sarin is described by chemical weapons experts as one of the “deadliest agents known to man”. It is classified as a weapon of mass destruction as a small amount is capable of killing thousands of people, as was evident in Syria.
The report states that hundreds of tonnes of the ingredients were sold to Damascus. The UK also supplied electrical fans to Syria in 2003, it says, components of which were used in Assad’s chemical weapon programme. The programme points out that at the same time the UK invaded Iraq, which it accused of stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.”
Washington Times – May 6th 2013 – HEADLINE:
Syrian rebels used Sarin nerve gas, not Assad’s regime: U.N. official
“
Testimony from victims strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin nerve gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior U.N. diplomat said in 2013.
Carla del Ponte, a member of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels seeking to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent.
But she said her panel had not yet seen any evidence of Syrian government forces using chemical weapons, according to the BBC.
Damascus has recently faced growing Western accusations that its forces used such weapons, which President Obama has described as crossing a red line. But Ms. del Ponte’s remarks may serve to shift the focus of international concern.
Ms. del Ponte, who in 1999 was appointed to head the U.N. war crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The former Swiss prosecutor and attorney general, told Swiss TV: “Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals. According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated.”
Source: US State Department
US admits Chemical weapons used by rebels
Last September, the US Department of State Consular Affairs offered official
Syria travel warning for American citizens: that the core rebel group currently operating in northwest Syria
not only possesses but has used chemical weapons – to the point that the State Department considers it a major enough threat to publicly warn citizens about.
The armed opposition group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is referenced early in the document: “
Terrorist and other violent extremist groups including ISIS and Al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham [dominated by Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization], operate in Syria.” The document clearly names terrorist groups operating in Syria who use tactics such as suicide bombings, kidnappings and chemical weapons – to target major city centres and open spaces.
