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Khan Shaykhun chemical attack

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2017 Khan Shaykhun chemical attack
Part of the Syrian Civil War
TypeAirstrike, chemical attack (disputed; unidentified chemical, with sarin gas suspected)
Location
Khan Shaykhun, Idlib Governorate, Syria

35°26′20″N 36°39′4″E / 35.43889°N 36.65111°E / 35.43889; 36.65111
Date4 April 2017
06:30 EEST[1] (UTC+03:00)
Executed byDisputed
Casualties74–100+[2] killed
300–557+[2][3] injured
Khan Shaykhun is located in Syria
Khan Shaykhun
Khan Shaykhun
Location of Khan Shaykhun within Syria

The Khan Shaykhun chemical attack took place on 4 April 2017 on the town of Khan Shaykhun in the Idlib Governorate of Syria. At the time of the attack, the town was under the control of Tahrir al-Sham,[4][5][6][7] formerly known as the al-Nusra Front.[8][9] The town was struck by a heavy airstrike by government forces followed by massive civilian chemical poisoning.[3][10] The release of the toxic gas, likely sarin, killed at least 74 people and injured more than 557, according to the Idlib health authority.[2] The attack was the deadliest use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war since the Ghouta chemical attack in 2013.[11]

The governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey and Israel attributed the attack to the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad.[12][13] The Assad government denied that it used any chemical weapons in the air strike. The Russian Defense Ministry said that Syrian aircraft bombed a warehouse belonging to rebels which "may have contained a rebel chemical arms stockpile".[14]

In response, on 7 April, the United States launched 59 cruise missiles at Shayrat Air Base, which U.S. intelligence believed was the source of the attack.[15][16]

Background

Main articles: Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war and Destruction of Syria's chemical weapons

Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War has been confirmed by the local sources in Syria and by the United Nations. Deadly attacks by chemical weapons during the war include the Ghouta attack in the suburbs of Damascus in August 2013 and the Khan al-Assal attack in the suburbs of Aleppo in March 2013. While no party took responsibility for the chemical attacks, a U.N. fact-finding mission and a UNHRC Commission of Inquiry have both investigated the attacks.

The U.N. mission found likely use of the nerve agent sarin in the case of Khan al-Asal (19 March 2013), Saraqib (29 April 2013), Ghouta (21 August 2013), Jobar (24 August 2013) and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya (25 August 2013). The UNHRC commission later confirmed the use of sarin in the Khan al-Asal, Saraqib and Ghouta attacks, but did not mention the Jobar and the Ashrafiyat Sahnaya attacks. The UNHRC commission also found that the sarin used in the Khan al-Asal attack bore "the same unique hallmarks" as the sarin used in the Ghouta attack and indicated that the perpetrators likely had access to chemicals from the Syrian Army's stockpile. Those attacks prompted the international community to pressure disarmament of the Syrian Armed Forces from chemical weapons, which was executed during 2014. Despite the disarmament process, dozens of incidents with suspected use of chemical weapons followed throughout Syria, the majority being attributed to anti-government fighters, in particular the Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front.[17]

In August 2016, a United Nations report explicitly blamed the Syrian military of Bashar al-Assad for dropping chemical weapons on the towns of Talmenes on 21 April 2014 and Sarmin on 16 March 2015.[18][19] Several other attacks have been alleged, reported and/or investigated. In December 2016, at least 53 people were killed in an alleged chemical weapons attack in ISIL-held villages near Uqairabat that bore similarities to the Ghouta attack, with none of the dead having blast injuries.[20][21] On 30 March 2017, an airstrike hit the town of al-Lataminah in the northern Hama Governorate, around 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Khan Shaykhun. More than 70 people in the area were then exposed to an unidentified chemical agent and showed symptoms of nausea, agitation, foaming, muscle spasm, and miosis (constriction of the pupil of the eye). Cardiac arrest occurred in two of the victims[22] and an orthopedic doctor died.[23]

Attack

Map showing frontlines at the time of the attack, with the location of the strike marked by the hatched circle

The attack took place around 6:30 a.m. local time on 4 April, before most children and parents had left for school or work.[1][24] Witnesses reported smelling a strange odor about ten minutes after a rocket attack and airstrike, followed by visible symptoms of poisoning.[25] White Helmet workers reported that there were four unusually weak explosions.[26] Medical workers and witnesses indicated that the attack was different than the chlorine gas attacks they had experienced in the past, in which the chlorine gas usually killed a few people in confined spaces and buildings. In contrast, in this attack, many people died outside. Furthermore, the victims exhibited pinpoint pupils, a sign of contact with nerve agents and sarin specifically.[27][28] Other symptoms reported included coldness in the extremities, decreased heart rate, and low blood pressure.[25] Some first responders died immediately at the scene[27] and some first responders became ill when they came into contact with the victims.[24] According to the Turkish health ministry, medical tests have confirmed the presence of isopropyl methylphosphonic acid — a known byproduct of sarin reacting with other compounds — in blood and urine samples of the victims. Tests by British scientests of samples found at the scene indicated that the chemical involved was "sarin or a sarin-like substance".[29][30] The rebels claimed the site of the aircraft launched chemical weapons attack was a blackened crater approximately 1 foot deep by 6 feet in circumference with the remains of an exploded 122mm artillery shell in it.[31]

Casualties

Medical sources in Idlib in the immediate aftermath of the attack reported more than 58 people, including 11 children, were killed and over 300 were wounded.[3]

By 7:30 a.m. EEST 100 wounded people had arrived at a local field hospital. Minister of health, Mohamad Firas al-Jundi, said that victims experienced suffocation, fluid in the lungs, foaming at the mouth, unconsciousness, spasm, and paralysis.[27] A few hours after the attack, a nearby clinic treating victims was hit by an airstrike, with reports that Russians bombed the hospital with the victims in an attempt to destroy the evidence.[32] The area's largest hospital had been bombed two days prior.[27] According to Dr. Abdel Hay Tennari, who treated 22 victims of the attack, the symptoms of victims are corresponding to symptoms of exposure to sarin. Patients who received pralidoxime, an antidote of sarin, reportedly stabilized their medical state in around an hour.[33]

On 5 April, local doctors and rescue workers at the scene said that the number of dead had risen to 74, with 600 injured,[34] while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and French Ambassador to the United Nations François Delattre said that over 100 had died.[35] Rescue workers gathered soil and tissue samples and sent them to Western intelligence officials for analysis.[36][37] On 6 April, the Turkish Ministry of Health, which had conducted tests on people transported to Turkey, said that it had identified the chemical used in the attack as sarin, citing lung damage found in victims.[37]

Responsibility

The chemical attack is widely attributed to the Syrian government in Western media sources.[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] Syria has denied any involvement.[36] Russia claimed that the deaths were a result of gas released when a government airstrike hit a rebel-operated chemical weapons factory.[46][47] The UN Security Council session unanimously declared the need for an investigation of the chemical attack.[48] According to OPCW, its investigation into the attack is ongoing.[49][50] Russia expressed support for an investigation by OPCW. On April 12, Russia subsequently vetoed a Security Council draft resolution calling for an investigation by the UN.[51]

Kareem Shaheen, the first western journalist to visit the town after the attack, reported that a warehouse and silos near the reported site of the attack appeared abandoned.[52][undue weight? – discuss]

According to Jerry Smith, head of the 2013 UN-backed operation that oversaw the disposal of the Syrian government's chemical weapons stockpiles, "if it is Sarin that was stored there and conventional munitions were used, there is every possibility that some of those [chemical] munitions were not consumed and that the Sarin liquid was ejected and could well have affected the population."[53]

Syrian opposition claims

According to the Idlib Media Centre, the chemical agent had the characteristics of sarin. The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces accused the Ba'athist Syrian government and the Syrian Armed Forces of carrying out the attack and called for an immediate investigation by the United Nations Security Council.[3]

Syrian government claims

On the day of the attack, a Syrian government official told Reuters that "the government does not and has not used chemical weapons, not in the past and not in the future."[54] The pro-government Al-Masdar News cited an army source as saying it had attacked a missile factory in the town using Sukhoi Su-22 bombers, whose bombs Al-Masdar News says cannot be filled with any chemical substances, and did not know the factory contained chemicals.[55] The use of Sukhoi Su-22 aircraft in the attack was also noted by pro-rebel sources (SOHR).[56] Later, the Russian Ministry of Defence reiterated the statement made by the Syrian Armed Forces, but said the attack on the ammunition depot took place between 11:30 and 12:30 EEST.[57]

In an April 13 interview to AFP, President Assad stated that the attack is "100 per cent fabrication" by the United States "working hand-in-glove with the terrorists", intended to provide a pretext for the airstrike on the Shayrat Airbase.[58][59] Assad stated: "You have a lot of fake videos now… We don’t know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?” According to numerous eyewitnesses and reporters on the ground, children did in fact die in the attack.[60]

Walid Muallem, the Syrian foreign minister told journalists at a press conference in Damascus that their armed forces "did not and will not" use chemical weapons, even against "terror groups" fighting against the Syrian government. Muallem also said that "the first reports of the chemical attack appeared several hours before the government airstrike, indicating that the chemical attack may have been a cruel and cynical 'false flag' operation used by the jihadists in a bid for US support."[14] Muallem also promised to provide information to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the United Nations regarding the transfer of chemical substances from Iraq to Syria, or from Turkey to Syria.[61]

Russian government claims

President Vladimir Putin said the attack could be a provocation, but that several versions were possible, and that the UN should investigate the attack.[62][63] The Russian government denied involvement in the chemical attack; Russia's defence ministry issued a statement saying that the Russian Air Force had "not carried out any strikes near Khan Shaykhun of Idlib province",[64] but said a Syrian aircraft did conduct an airstrike on a warehouse containing ammunition and equipment belonging to rebels near Khan Shaykhun, "yesterday, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m".[14][47] The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was "premature to accuse the Syrian government of using chemical weapons in Idlib", and that insist on full and impartial investigation.[50][65]

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the use of chemical weapons is a "dangerous and monstrous crime" and that Russia's support for Assad is not "unconditional". He also said he doubted that information was based on "objective materials or evidence", and remarked that only Syrian government can resist "terrorists on the ground."[66]

Independent expert claims

Theodore Postol, an American professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), analyzed the evidence referenced in the 4-page "dossier" issued by the White House and concluded that the assessment “contains absolutely no evidence that this attack was the result of a munition being dropped from an aircraft” and that photographic evidence used in the assessment pointed to an attack by people on the ground using a 122mm artillery rocket tube filled with a chemical agent and detonated by an explosive charge laid on top of it.[67][68][69][70][71]

Patrick Martin has supported Postol in an article claiming “any serious examination of the NSC document reveals it to be a series of bare assertions without any supporting evidence". Martin highlights how the language used lacks any substantiating proof, saying things such as “The United States is confident” … “We have confidence in our assessment” … “We assess” … “Our information indicates” … “It is clear” … and so on. In other words, “this is the US government speaking, trust us.” [72]

US reaction

According to the US government, the Syrian government under Assad was behind the chemical attack,[27] and Syrian jets carried out the bombing of a rebel stronghold.[65] U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was quoted as saying "Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent".[73] According to Tillerson, the U.S. appealed to Assad to cease the use of chemical weapons, and "[o]ther than that, there is no change to our military posture",[74] with ISIS remaining the primary priority.[75][76]

President Donald Trump called the attack "reprehensible" and attributed it to the Syrian government, saying the act could not be ignored "by the civilized world" during his meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan.[77][78][79] Trump also blamed the attack on supposed failures of the administration of his predecessor, Barack Obama.[79][80] U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: "Anyone who uses chemical weapons to attack his own people shows a fundamental disregard for human decency and must be held accountable."[79][81] 72 hours after the attack, the US launched cruise missiles at the Shayrat airfield, from which the chemical attack was believed to have originated.[15] US representative to the UN Nikki Haley has stated that, though before the chemical attack the US had not considered overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power a top US priority, it is now prominent among US priorities in the region.[75] At the UN Security Council, Haley stated that "When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action",[82] by it implying if the UN failed to hold Assad accountable for the use of chemical weapons on civilians, the US will.[83]

On April 11, Secretary James Mattis and General Joseph Votel held a press conference at the Pentagon, stating that Syria had conducted a chemical attacks, with Votel stating that these were probably undertaken from the airfield which the United States Central Command had struck. Votel stated that the Central Command achieved its objective to limit the capabilities of Syria's offensive resources and that Syrian personnel were not targeted in these strikes. Mattis concluded that his command is embedded in the global strategy whose main concern is the ISIL, and that the airstrike, which had nothing to do with ISIL, was made "so the bar not become lower" whenever international treaties are broken.[84][failed verification]

Military response

Main article: 2017 Shayrat missile strike
USS Ross firing a Tomahawk missile towards the Shayrat Airbase

On the morning of 7 April, 2017, the United States launched 59 cruise missiles on Shayrat Airbase, a Syrian airfield near Shayrat, believed to be the base for the aircraft that carried out the chemical attack.[15] In contrast to the coalition's accidental air raid on Deir ez-Zor in 2016, this was both a unilateral action and the first intentional strike against the Syrian government.[85][86]

International reactions

Supranational and non-governmental organizations

Secretary-General António Guterres said that he was "deeply disturbed" by reports of the Idlib chemical attack, noting that the use of chemical weapons is banned under international law.[87] Federica Mogherini, the European Union's diplomatic chief, called the attack "awful" and said that Bashar al-Assad's government bore "primary responsibility" for it.[88]

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) expressed "serious concern" and said that its Fact-Finding Mission in Syria was "gathering and analysing information from all available sources."[89] The following day, the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW, referring to the media reports, requested all member states of the Chemical Weapons Convention to share available information on what it described preliminary as "allegations of use of chemical weapons in the Khan Shaykhun area of Idlib province in the Syrian Arab Republic."[90] Amnesty International said the evidence points to an "air-launched chemical attack",[91] while the World Health Organization said that victims carried the signs of exposure to nerve agents.[91]

Countries

France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council after the attack.[92][93] France, Britain, and the United States (who are among the permanent members of the Security Council), circulated a draft to the Council's 15 members condemning the attack in Syria and demanding a full investigation into it. The emergency closed-door meeting was set on 5 April in New York.[94][95] US ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, serving as council president for the month, announced there would not be a vote on a draft resolution to respond to the chemical weapons attack, but instead of one resolution by US and second by Russia, there was a third resolution unexpectedly submitted by Sweden and nine other non-permanent members. When the council concluded its meeting without conclusion, on the morning of 6 April U.S. launched the missiles strike.[96]

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: "There are continuing questions ... about who is responsible for these horrible attacks against civilians, and that's why I'm impressing on the UN Security Council to pass a strong resolution that allows the international community to determine first of all who was responsible for these attacks and how we will move forward."[97] Egyptian foreign ministry released a statement saying that the "painful and unacceptable" images of the massacre reaffirm the necessity of reaching a political solution to end the crisis in Syria, in light of the international community decisions and Security Council Resolution 2254, as well as the Geneva Conventions.[98] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the international community "to fulfill its obligation from 2013 to fully and finally remove these horrible weapons from Syria".[99] Other countries who condemned the chemical attack include Italy,[100] Pakistan,[101] Saudi Arabia,[102] Switzerland,[103] United Kingdom,[94]

Iraqi government condemned the chemical attack and called for an "initiative aimed at punishing those responsible". The next day, Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also condemned the attacks and called for President Assad to step down.[104] Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said if al-Assad was found to be behind the attack, as the United States believe, it represented "a shocking war crime."[105] Other countries who accused Assad for responsibility include Qatar,[106] and Turkey.[107][108] Iranian Foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi condemned "all use of chemical weapons," but suggested the blame for the attack lay with "terrorist groups" rather than the Syrian government.[109]

Skeptical individuals

Democratic representative Tulsi Gabbard said she is "skeptical" the Assad government was behind the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun.[110][111]

Former UN weapons inspector and Weapons of Mass Destruction expert, Hans Blix has criticized the evidence for the attack, saying "I don't know whether in Washington they presented any evidence, but I did not see that in the Security Council," Blix said. "Merely pictures of victims that were held up, that the whole world can see with horror, such pictures are not necessarily evidence of who did it."[112]

Another former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has suggested that the alleged attack is an instance of how Al Qaeda is "playing" Donald Trump and the American media, saying "the American public and decision-makers make use of a sophisticated propaganda campaign involving video images and narratives provided by forces opposed to the regime of Bashar al-Assad, including organizations like the "White Helmets," the Syrian-American Medical Society, the Aleppo Media Center, which have a history of providing slanted information designed to promote an anti-Assad message". Ritter explains the situation on the ground saying "Khan Shaykhun is ground zero for the Islamic jihadists who have been at the center of the anti-Assad movement in Syria since 2011. Up until February 2017, it was occupied by a pro-ISIS group known as Liwa al-Aqsa that was engaged in an oftentimes-violent struggle with its competitor organization, Al Nusra Front (which later morphed into Tahrir al-Sham, but under any name functioning as Al Qaeda’s arm in Syria) for resources and political influence among the local population".[113]

Iran-Contra investigative journalist Robert Parry has placed blame on Michael R. Gordon and Anne Barnard of the New York Times for obfuscating evidence, using unreliable sources like the White Helmets and covering the event to push for an outdated, neocon concept of "regime change".[114]

Retired U.S. intelligence officer Colonel W. Patrick Lang has argued that due to the agreement to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents, Russia contacted the United States and informed them of a planned attack on a weapons storage warehouse. Lang suggests the Syrian Air Force hit the target with conventional weapons and instead of a massive secondary explosion, chemical smoke began issuing from the attack site and spreading out over the area. He suggests that Tahrir al-Sham (previously Al Qaeda in Syria) used Khan Shaykhun to store chemicals including chlorine and organic phosphates that flowed with the wind and killed civilians.[115][116]

Use of Sarin in Syria

When accused of using chemical weapons, the Syrian government has often makes counter-accusations. An unclassified State Department report revealed that the FFM concluded that there was insufficient information to confirm the Syrian government's claims, but did note than in Darayya there was a “high degree of probability that some of those involved in the alleged incident in Darayya on February 15,2015, were at some point exposed to Sarin or a Sarin-like substance.” Furthermore the declassified report confirmed that mustard gas was used on the opposition held town of Marea.[117] It further stated that the Syrian regime remained the only party in the Syrian civil war that possessed helicopters, which the FFM reported were present in many of the chlorine uses in 2014 and 2015.[118]

The leaked state department document also made note that gaps, discrepancies and omissions in the Syrian governments declaration raised serious questions about whether Syria had declared its entire CW program.[119] Of the Syrian governments 27 known chemical weapons facilities, the Syrian government only destroyed 3 of them.[120]

See also

References

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