Gas Attack in Syria

[Zwinmar]

Reuters

Opposition says as many as 1,300 killed in gas attack near Damascus

By Dominic Evans and Khaled Yacoub Oweis

BEIRUT/AMMAN | Wed Aug 21, 2013 10:32am EDT

(Reuters) - Syria's opposition accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of gassing many hundreds of people - by one report as many as 1,300 - on Wednesday in what would, if confirmed, be the world's worst chemical weapons attack in decades.

Western and regional countries called for U.N. chemical weapons investigators - who arrived in Damascus just three days ago - to be urgently dispatched to the scene of one of the deadliest incidents of the two-year-old civil war.

Images, including some taken by freelance photographers and supplied to Reuters, showed scores of bodies including of small children, laid out on the floor of a clinic with no visible signs of injuries.

Reuters was not independently able to verify the cause of their death. The Syrian government denied that it had used chemical arms.

George Sabra, one of the leading opponents of Assad, said the death toll was 1,300 killed by poison gas rained down on suburbs east of Damascus.

"Today's crimes are ... not the first time the regime has used chemical weapons. But they constitute a turning point in the regime's operations," he told a news conference in Istanbul. "This time it was for annihilation rather than terror."

An opposition monitoring group, citing figures compiled from medical clinics in the Damascus suburbs, put the death toll at 494 - 90 percent of them killed by gas, the rest by bombing and conventional arms. The rebel Syrian National Coalition said 650 people had been killed.

If the cause of death and the scale of the killing were confirmed, it would be the worst known use of chemical weapons since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988.

Activists said rockets with chemical agents hit the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar during fierce pre-dawn bombardment by government forces.

The Damascus Media Office monitoring center said 150 bodies were counted in Hammouriya, 100 in Kfar Batna, 67 in Saqba, 61 in Douma, 76 in Mouadamiya and 40 in Irbib, all suburbs of Damascus.

SYMPTOMS

A nurse at Douma Emergency Collection facility, Bayan Baker, earlier told Reuters the death toll collated from medical centers was at least 213.

"Many of the casualties are women and children. They arrived with their pupils constricted, cold limbs and foam in their mouths. The doctors say these are typical symptoms of nerve gas victims," the nurse said. Exposure to sarin gas causes pupils in the eyes to shrink to pinpoint sizes and foaming at the lips.

The U.N. team is in Syria investigating allegations that both rebels and army forces used chemical weapons in the past, one of the main disputes in international diplomacy over Syria.

The Swedish scientist leading the team, Ake Sellstrom, said the reports should be looked into, but doing so would require a request from a U.N. member state.

France said the mission must be sent to the site to "investigate immediately". Turkey and Saudi Arabia made similar calls. Britain said it was deeply concerned and would raise the issue at the U.N. Security Council, adding the attacks would be "a shocking escalation" if confirmed.

Extensive amateur video and photographs appeared on the Internet showing countless bodies, with victims choking, some of them foaming at the mouth, and no sign of outward injury.

A video purportedly shot in the Kafr Batna neighborhood showed a room filled with more than 90 bodies, many of them children and a few women and elderly men. Most of the bodies appeared ashen or pale but with no visible injuries. About a dozen were wrapped in blankets.

Other footage showed doctors treating people in makeshift clinics. One video showed the bodies of a dozen people lying on the floor of a clinic, with no visible wounds. The narrator in the video said they were all members of a single family. In a corridor outside lay another five bodies.

A Syrian military officer appeared on state television and said the allegations were untrue and a sign of "hysteria and floundering" by Assad's opponents. Information Minister Omran Zoabi said the allegations were "illogical and fabricated".

The head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition said Assad's forces had carried out a massacre: "This is a chance for the (U.N. inspectors) to see with their own eyes this massacre and know that this regime is a criminal one," Ahmed Jarba said.

ACCUSATIONS

Syria is one of just a handful of countries that are not parties to the international treaty that bans chemical weapons, and Western nations believe it has caches of undeclared mustard gas, sarin and VX nerve agents.

Assad's officials have said they would never use poison gas - if they had it - against Syrians. The United States and European allies believe Assad's forces used small amounts of sarin gas in attacks in the past, which Washington called a "red line" that justified international military aid for the rebels.

Assad's government has responded in the past by accusing the rebels of using chemical weapons, which they deny. Western countries say they do not believe the rebels have access to poison gas. Assad's main global ally Moscow says accusations on both sides must be investigated.

Khaled Omar of the opposition Local Council in Ain Tarma said he saw at least 80 bodies at the Hajjah Hospital in Ain Tarma and at a makeshift clinic at Tatbiqiya School in the nearby district of Saqba.

"The attack took place at around 3:00 a.m. (8:00 p.m. EDT). Most of those killed were in their homes," Omar said.

An activist working with Ahrar al-Sham rebel unit in the Erbin district east of the capital who used the name Abu Nidal said many of those who died were rescuers who were overcome with poison when they arrived at the scene.

"We believe there was a group of initial responders who died or were wounded, because when we went in later, we saw men collapsed on staircases or inside doorways and it looks like they were trying to go in to help the wounded and then were hurt themselves," he told Reuters by Skype.

"At first none of us knew there were chemical agents because it seemed like just another night of air strikes, and no one was anticipating chemical weapons use, especially with U.N. monitors in town."

The timing of the allegations - just three days after the U.N. experts checked in to a Damascus hotel a few kilometers to the east at the start of their mission - was surprising.

"It would be very peculiar if it was the government to do this at the exact moment the international inspectors come into the country," said Rolf Ekeus, a retired Swedish diplomat who headed a team of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq in the 1990s.

"At the least, it wouldn't be very clever."

(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Beirut and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; Writing by Peter Graff and Dominic Evans; Editing by Will Waterman)

[cosmicalstorm]

The rebel side has been suffering many setbacks lately. They are probably desperate for more outside assistance. I'm personally going to want to see some pretty solid evidence before I believe this is not a desperate act of Pallywood. I would not be shocked if it turned out they simply gathered as many dead bodies as possible and put them in a big pile screaming gas-attack.

[Patroklos]

It doesn't appear to make sense from Assad's POV given recent battlefield victories and the continued noninterference of the international community for the most part. Then again, dictators do lots of things that don't make sense to me.

[Ace Pace]

The rebel side has been suffering many setbacks lately. They are probably desperate for more outside assistance. I'm personally going to want to see some pretty solid evidence before I believe this is not a desperate act of Pallywood. I would not be shocked if it turned out they simply gathered as many dead bodies as possible and put them in a big pile screaming gas-attack.

The fact that a few hours later, Syrian forces moved in and easily took the areas?

I'm far from being pro rebels in most cases, but this is pretty much non-news to me.

[cosmicalstorm]

I don't rule it out. But it seems crazy that he would choose the very day after UN chemichal weapons inspectors arrive to unleash hell. It seems pretty possible that rebels would choose this day as an optimal date and time for a false flag attack to rally the international community for their cause, a cause that has suffered a lot of setbacks in the past 6 months.

[Thanas]

I doubt they would gas hundreds of their own fighters though.

[Zaune]

I don't rule it out. But it seems crazy that he would choose the very day after UN chemichal weapons inspectors arrive to unleash hell. It seems pretty possible that rebels would choose this day as an optimal date and time for a false flag attack to rally the international community for their cause, a cause that has suffered a lot of setbacks in the past 6 months.

Or it could have been an honest mistake. Someone loaded a pallet of gas shells onto the wrong truck, someone else didn't bother checking the label on the shell they were loading...

Well, it's more likely than the Syrian government deciding to do the one thing that would definitely push the US into arming the rebels and Russia into throwing them to the wolves, when as you pointed out, they're actually doing fairly well.

[Sea Skimmer]

I doubt they would gas hundreds of their own fighters though.

They absolutely would not, and the Syrian government has not been gaining significant ground in Damascus region, the government gains in general have been exaggerated and rebel successes ignored. Assad isn't openly loosing, but he certainly isn't even close to winning. The big offensive against Homs had bogged down, rebels just gained, and then lost a big tract of land along the coast, and the government situation in the entire Aleppo region is about to fall off a cliff because they only have one supply road left, and that road is subject to constant attacks to the point that the pro regime side of the city is actually getting most of its food through the rebel held side. Just yesterday the rebels shot down a helicopter with an SA-8 launcher. Situation is not good when rebels have radar directed SAMs and all.

A mass gas attack to finally break the rebel positions in eastern Damascus makes a lot of sense tactically, its by far the best place such an attack could be launched in terms of return. Huge amounts of artillery and bombing have been employed in the area, rather intensively in the last few days, suggesting a major effort afoot to do something. If said gas really happened or not, or the way in which is being claimed, we just don't and can't know right now, but it should not be judged unlikely on military grounds.

Or it could have been an honest mistake. Someone loaded a pallet of gas shells onto the wrong truck, someone else didn't bother checking the label on the shell they were loading...

That's really not a credible idea on this scale, or at all.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

It doesn't appear to make sense from Assad's POV given recent battlefield victories and the continued noninterference of the international community for the most part. Then again, dictators do lots of things that don't make sense to me.

It makes perfect sense. The international community (pronounced: "The West") has made it clear that they plan to make a bunch of unhappy noises, but otherwise sit this one out (especially telling: the response of the US ... whose reaction to the most recent gas attack is "We'll ... um ... think of something once the ... uh ... the UN has a chance to study the problem.") It's not like any of the Western powers has any real appetite for a military intervention in an all-out civil war in a country that nobody in the West could be arsed to care about anyway. They've got an instant veto (in the form of Russia) on the Security Council should the UN attempt to push for anything with real teeth. Their only real worry, Israel, has Egypt (lurching toward civil war) and Lebanon (full of unrest since Hizbullah is off fighting for Assad) to worry about. The Syrian government has to be feeling pretty confident that the international community is going to let them do whatever they like to the opposition, at this point.

[wautd]

and Russia into throwing them to the wolves.

Yeah, call me cynical I think that even when Syria would go full genocide, starts using child soldiers and whatever warcrime they havn't committed yet, Russia would still back them. Maybe untill they start doing really immoral things like broadcasting gay propaganda

[Borgholio]

Syria just bombed the same area where the gas attack supposedly happened. Coincidence?

http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-forces-bom ... 45055.html

[Patroklos]

Not really, since it was an ongoing offensive that initiated the claims in the first place.

NPR reported this morning that the rebels are refusing the UN weapons inspectors access to the site. They are claiming they can't give them guarantees of safety due to the ongoing government offensive there, which oddly enough is the reasoning the government is giving the inspectors as well.

And since we are all being cynical as far as I can tell there weren't any rebel fighters killed in this incident, just civilians. So it’s not as if the rebels harmed their own fighting ability if they are indeed responsible. That seems like a pretty big shift on their part but it makes as much sense as anything anyone has come up with for the government's motives.

[cosmicalstorm]

I doubt they would gas hundreds of their own fighters though.

They absolutely would not, and the Syrian government has not been gaining significant ground in Damascus region, the government gains in general have been exaggerated and rebel successes ignored. Assad isn't openly loosing, but he certainly isn't even close to winning. The big offensive against Homs had bogged down, rebels just gained, and then lost a big tract of land along the coast, and the government situation in the entire Aleppo region is about to fall off a cliff because they only have one supply road left, and that road is subject to constant attacks to the point that the pro regime side of the city is actually getting most of its food through the rebel held side. Just yesterday the rebels shot down a helicopter with an SA-8 launcher. Situation is not good when rebels have radar directed SAMs and all.

A mass gas attack to finally break the rebel positions in eastern Damascus makes a lot of sense tactically, its by far the best place such an attack could be launched in terms of return. Huge amounts of artillery and bombing have been employed in the area, rather intensively in the last few days, suggesting a major effort afoot to do something. If said gas really happened or not, or the way in which is being claimed, we just don't and can't know right now, but it should not be judged unlikely on military grounds.

Or it could have been an honest mistake. Someone loaded a pallet of gas shells onto the wrong truck, someone else didn't bother checking the label on the shell they were loading...

That's really not a credible idea on this scale, or at all.

First of all, how can you be so sure they would not sacrifice their own men? You know a lot of military history Skimmer. Tell me how many times have you come across a historical military situation where a commander basically said "OK. We are sending these men to certain death. But in the long run the death of these brave soldiers will serve the great <insert cause>"?
Secondly, ever since Syria morphed from "major unrest" to "massive civil war no holds barred" I have said to myself many times "I wonder when Assad will use chemical weapons". Especially ever since they dragged Gaddafi out of a sewer pipe and executed him. In fact, I often wonder why chemical weapons are not used more often under these circumstances.
But doesn't it seem like a strange choice of date and time? As if Assad was standing around waiting for the UN team to arrive and pressed the button once the plane landed.
I don't doubt any of the information you provide. I'm sure it's all true and I'm very thankful for the commentary you provide, it's a beacon on a dark ocean of mangled and misunderstood news sometimes.

[Thanas]

Spiegel confirms it was a nerve gas attack, most likely perpetrated by regime forces

[Broomstick]

I could see either side using the weapons because it's becoming increasingly obvious the west doesn't want to do anything about this. Either they don't want to risk Russian ire by interfering with their client or they don't want to risk their own getting gassed or they just don't give a rat's ass about what happens in Syria.

[cosmicalstorm]

I have no idea why the US should get involved in Syria. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. In this case the 'damned if you don't' alternative seems like a very attractive option.

[Thanas]

I could see either side using the weapons because it's becoming increasingly obvious the west doesn't want to do anything about this. Either they don't want to risk Russian ire by interfering with their client or they don't want to risk their own getting gassed or they just don't give a rat's ass about what happens in Syria.

Both sides might want to use them. Only one side has the access to them and the capabilities and training to launch them.

[Siege]

Well, apparently Russia now backs a UN probe of the gas attack.

[cosmicalstorm]

It seems more likely Assad did it now. I wonder if usage of Chem will continue. It would be horrifying to see the widespread use of chemical weapons in the age of mobilecameras.

[Omeganian]

It is really sad, seeing the Arab Spring moving in the expected direction.

[LaCroix]

The idea of intervention doesn't seem to be completeley off the table, though. It's now four destroyers off the Syrian coast.
USS Mahan remains in Med

[Dr Roberts]

Why are chemical weapons considered worse than conventional weaponry? People die (often slowly) either way.

[Gandalf]

Why are chemical weapons considered worse than conventional weaponry? People die (often slowly) either way.

Don't just look at the mortality statistics. Look at the physiological effects.

[Broomstick]

Why are chemical weapons considered worse than conventional weaponry? People die (often slowly) either way.

Partly, I think it's the fact that while a military force might have some defense against such attacks most civilian populations are pretty defenseless against them, particularly the sort of nerve agents that can kill with skin contact by a small amount.

You can't hide from that shit. If there's shooting you might be able to get inside or behind something that can offer you some protection but if the air is toxic you're fucked. Worse yet is the shit you can see and can't smell - the psychological effects of a deadly weapon you can't detect until it's actually killing you is terrible.

And finally, agonizing death is guaranteed with some chemical weapons. A bullet just might kill you quick, darn near instantaneously and therefore (presumably) painlessly or as close as possible. Chemical weapon deaths are agonizing, usually one or more of the following: slow suffocation via drowning in your own body fluids, burning alive (blistering agents) via chemical reaction with your skin and mucus membranes, or a nasty combo of headache/nausea/diarrhea/severe muscle cramps all over your body until your diaphragm seizes up and you suffocate, unless your heart gives out first, and oh yes, you're fully conscious the whole time. Some nerve agents don't cause immediate symptoms with skin contact, so you could be fine initially then 4 hours later the pain and agony start, meanwhile, you might have spread that shit around unintentionally, maybe hugged your kids from relief at being alive only to watch them go through this shit because you accidentally and unknowingly got some on them. Yeah, have a side order of guilt with your agony, thinking you might have accidentally killed someone you care about. If you survive the experience you have a high likelihood of things like severe lung damage, scarring, blindness, and/or neurological damage, in other words, permanent injury. They don't just kill, they maim as well.

[Dartzap]

Beeb

Syria crisis: UN inspectors' convoy 'hit by sniper fire'

Unidentified snipers have opened fire on a convoy of UN experts investigating suspected chemical weapons attacks in Syria's capital, the UN has said.
One car was shot at "multiple times", forcing the convoy to turn back.

The UN promised to continue with the inquiry as soon as it could replace the car.

Syrian state media blamed opposition "terrorists" for the attack, though the claim could not be verified.

Hundreds died in suspected chemical attacks on Wednesday near Damascus.

The US said there was little doubt Syrian forces used chemical weapons in the attacks, which reportedly killed more than 300 people in rebel-held areas.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dismissed the accusation as "an insult to common sense" and warned the US against military intervention.

"If someone is dreaming of making Syria a puppet of the West, then this will not happen," he told the Russian newspaper Izvestiya.

Anyone else got that pre-war sinking feeling at the bottom of their stomach?