Syrian Air Force May Have Dropped Chlorine Bomb On Town in Opposition Area in 2018, Says Watchdog

Syrian Air Force May Have Dropped Chlorine Bomb On Town in Opposition Area in 2018, Says Watchdog
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Syrian Air Force May Have Dropped Chlorine Bomb On Town in Opposition Area in 2018, Says Watchdog

Syrian Air Force May Have Dropped Chlorine Bomb On Town in Opposition Area in 2018, Says Watchdog

The global chemical weapons watchdog has “reasonable grounds to believe” that Syria’s air force dropped a chlorine bomb on a residential neighborhood in the opposition-controlled Idlib region in February 2018, a report released on Monday said.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government. Syria and its military ally Russia have consistently denied using chemical weapons during President Bashar al-Assad’s decade-old conflict with opposition forces, saying any such attacks were staged by opponents to make Damascus look like the culprit.

The new report by the OPCW chemical weapons watchdog’s investigative arm said no one was killed when the cylinder of chlorine gas, delivered in a barrel bomb, hit the Al Talil neighborhood in the city of Saraqib in February 2018, Reuters reported.

However, a dozen people were treated for symptoms consistent with chemical poisoning, including nausea, eye irritation, shortness of breath, coughing and wheezing, it said.

Chlorine is not an internationally banned toxin, but the use of any chemical substance in armed conflict is banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, the implementation of which is overseen by the OPCW watchdog based in The Hague.

In April 2020, the OPCW’s Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) concluded that Syrian warplanes and a helicopter had dropped bombs containing chlorine and sarin nerve gas on a village in Syria’s Hama region in March 2017.

The latest report by the IIT also implicated Syrian regime forces. It concluded that “there were reasonable grounds to believe that at least one cylinder filled with chlorine was dropped from a helicopter of the Syrian Arab Air Forces, belonging to the Tiger Forces.”

The Tiger Forces are an elite Syrian military unit generally used in offensive operations in the war, which has largely subsided with Assad having wrested back most territory with crucial Russian and Iranian support.

“All elements indicated the presence of Tiger Forces in the vicinity of Saraqib. They found that a helicopter was just flying above the bombed area at the moment of the gas release,” a summary of the OPCW report said.

It said that samples collected from the scene were examined and other possible means of chlorine contamination considered, but the OPCW team said nothing was found to indicate that the incident was staged by Assad’s adversaries.

The team identified individuals believed to be involved in the alleged attack but did not release them.

Between 2015 and 2017, a joint United Nations-OPCW team known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) found that Syrian government troops had used the nerve agent sarin and chlorine barrel bombs on several occasions, while ISIS militants were found to have used mustard gas.



Hezbollah Rocket Hits Near Tel Aviv after Beirut Airstrike

Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)
Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)
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Hezbollah Rocket Hits Near Tel Aviv after Beirut Airstrike

Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)
Members of the Israeli forces inspect a site following a rocket fired from Lebanon hit an area in Rinatya, outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (AP)

Lebanon's Hezbollah fired heavy rocket barrages at Israel on Sunday, with Israeli media reporting that a building had been hit near Tel Aviv, after a powerful Israeli airstrike killed at least 20 people in Beirut the day before.

Israel also struck Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, where intensified bombardment over the last two weeks has coincided with signs of progress in US-led ceasefire talks.

Hezbollah, which has previously vowed to respond to attacks on Beirut by targeting Tel Aviv, said it had launched two precision missiles at military sites in Tel Aviv and nearby.

There were no reports from Israel of damage to the sites, but broadcaster Kan showed an apartment damaged by rocket fire in Petah Tikvah, east of Tel Aviv. Footage broadcast by the medical service MDA showed cars ablaze in Petah Tikvah.

Hezbollah fired 170 rockets at Israel on Sunday, according to the Israeli military, which said many had been intercepted, but at least four people had been injured by rocket shrapnel.

Video obtained by Reuters showed a projectile exploding on impact as it smashed into the roof of a building in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya.

Israel warned on social media that it planned to target Hezbollah facilities in southern Beirut before strikes which security sources in Lebanon said demolished two apartment blocks.

On Saturday, it had carried out one of its deadliest and most powerful strikes on the center of Beirut, killing at least 20 people, Lebanon's health ministry said. The Israeli military did not comment on the strike or the target.

Israel went on the offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in September, pounding the south, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut's southern suburbs with airstrikes after nearly a year of hostilities ignited by the Gaza war.

Israeli attacks killed 84 in Lebanon on Saturday, taking the death toll to 3,754 and 15,626 injured since October 2023, the Lebanese health ministry reported on Sunday.

US CEASEFIRE PROPOSAL AWAITS ISRAEL'S RESPONSE

The Israeli offensive has uprooted more than 1 million people in Lebanon.

Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

US mediator Amos Hochstein highlighted progress in negotiations during a visit to Beirut last week, before travelling to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, and then returning to Washington.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Sunday said a US ceasefire proposal was awaiting final approval from Israel.

"We must pressure the Israeli government and maintain the pressure on Hezbollah to accept the US proposal for a ceasefire," he said in Beirut after meeting Lebanese officials.

Diplomacy has focused on restoring a ceasefire based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war. It requires Hezbollah to pull its fighters back around 30 km (19 miles) from the Israeli border, and the Lebanese army to deploy in the buffer zone.

The Lebanese army said on Sunday at least one soldier had been killed and 18 more injured in an Israeli strike that caused severe damage at an army center in Al-Amiriya near the southern city of Tyre.

The Israeli military said it regretted and was investigating the incident, and that it was fighting against Hezbollah, not the Lebanese Army.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said the attack "represents a direct bloody message rejecting all efforts to reach a ceasefire, strengthen the army’s presence in the south, and implement ... 1701".

Borrell said the EU was ready to allocate 200 million euros ($208 million) to support the Lebanese army.