Syrian government troops were responsible for two toxic gas attacks and Islamic State militants used sulfur mustard gas, a joint investigation by the United Nations and the global chemical weapons watchdog found on Wednesday, according to a confidential report seen by Reuters.
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The report, which is expected to be released after August 30, found that the Syrian regime “repeatedly used industrial chlorine as a weapon against its own people in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 2118”, according to White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price.
He said it was “very important” that the team said definitively that Islamic State extremists were responsible for an attack using mustard gas “because usually all talk we heard about any use of chemical weapons was an effort to ascribe things to the Syrian government”. The OPCW confirmed in the summer of 2014 that Syria’s declared stockpile of chemical weapons had been removed from the country.
One U.S. diplomat, according to the Foreign Policy report, said the samples of undeclared chemical warfare agents collected by the OPCW are “indicative of production, weaponization, and storage of [chemical warfare] agents by the Syrian military that has never been acknowledged by the Syrian government”.
The team said evidence in three other cases suggested government responsibility, but was not conclusive.
The experts’ findings mirror “numerous other confirmed cases of chemical weapons use across Syria, and countless other allegations of such use, including as recently as several weeks ago”, the ambassador added.
But Russia, a staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a veto-holding member of the Council, could block any action. The Security Council is scheduled to discuss the JIM report on August 30, but whether it will take any action remains to be seen.
“When it comes to proliferation, the use of chemical weapons, of such weapons of mass destruction, we can not afford to be weak”.
If the panel concludes that the Assad regime was responsible for some of the chemical attacks, the Security Council would then decide whether to impose sanctions or possibly ask the International Criminal Court to take up the matter as a war crime. “Whoever uses chemical weapons in Syria needs to be held accountable”, he said.
The report, carried out in conjunction with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), accused the Assad regime of using chlorine gas in two attacks and IS fighters of using mustard gas in one assault.
“The only constant in this process has been Syria’s refusal to be open and transparent about the full extent of its chemical weapons program”, Ward said.
“The report also identifies Daesh as a perpetrator”.
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The inquiry did not recommend further investigation of the remaining three cases in Kafr Zita on April 11, 2014, and Al-Tamanah on April 29-30, 2014, and May 25-26, 2014.
