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Page added on August 22, 2013
Nerve Gas Attack in Syria
Genocide in Syria as 1,300 people including hundreds of women and children are wiped out in nerve gas attack say Syrian rebels as Hague warns use of chemical weapons would mark ‘shocking escalation’
- Activists claim 1,300 killed in government rocket strike on residential area
- If true, it would represent the worst known use of chemical weapons since Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988
- Chemical warheads hit suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar
- They hit just before dawn as families lay sleeping
- A UN team is in Syria to probe chemical weapons use by President Assad
- Many countries have called for an immediate investigation
- French Foreign Minister has called the attack an ‘unprecedented atrocity’
- William Hague said hopes attack will ‘wake up some’ who support Assad
- Claims come as refugees flood into Iraqi Kurdistan
The world has looked on in horror as graphic images emerged showing the aftermath of a dawn poison gas attack in the suburbs of Damascus that wiped out 1,300 people as they lay sleeping in their beds.
Syrian activists accuse President Bashar al-Assad’s forces of launching the nerve gas attack in what would be by far the worst reported use of poison gas in the two-year-old civil war.
Activists said rockets with chemical agents hit the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar before dawn.
While these pictures of dead children are graphic, disturbing and undoubtedly the worst so far to have emerged from the conflict, MailOnline has made the decision to publish them in order to raise awareness of the plight of innocent people in a war that shows no sign of ending.
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Slaughter: Syrian activists inspect the bodies of people they say were killed by nerve gas in Damascus
The activists said at least 213 people, including women and children, were killedy in a nerve gas attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces
Bodies of people, including children, activists say were killed by nerve gas
Innocent: Dead bodies of Syrian children after an alleged poisonous gas rocket attack fired by regime forces
The accounts could not be verified independently and were denied by Syrian state television, which said they were disseminated deliberately to distract a team of United Nations chemical weapons experts that arrived three days ago.
Syria’s Information Minister called the activists’ claim a ‘disillusioned and fabricated one whose objective is to deviate and mislead’ the UN mission.
Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from neighbouring Jordan, said there were videos allegedly showing both children and adults in field hospitals, some of them suffocating, coughing and sweating.
A young survivor of the alleged gas attack cries as he takes shelter inside a mosque
A man, affected by what activists say is nerve gas, is treated in the Damascus suburbs of Jesreen
A man is treated in hospital for the effects of chemical poisoning after the suspected Sarin attack
A boy who survived what activists say is a gas attack cries as he takes shelter inside a mosque in the Duma neighbourhood of Damascus
An undignified end: This image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube allegedly shows Syrians covering a mass grave containing bodies of victims of the attack. The atrocity seems all too familiar to the children and young men standing around the grave site
A wounded Syrian girl waits for treatment. It has been reported that medical staff lack vital supplies needed to treat those affected
Meanwhile, fighting in strife-hit country has fuelled a mass exodus of about 35,000 refugees into Iraq and risks exploding into a full-blown side conflict as Kurdish militias battled against al-Qaida-linked fighters in the northeast.
SARIN: ONE OF THE MOST DEADLY CHEMICAL AGENTS
Activists say the nerve agent Sarin was used in the alleged chemical weapons attack that killed up to 1,300 people.
Sarin is colourless, tasteless and odourless, unlike mustard gas which smells of rotten onions or garlic.
It is one of the most toxic of the known chemical warfare agents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Once a person has breathed in Sarin, death can occur within one to 10 minutes if there is no treatment.
If it is drunk, the victim can survive for up to 18 hours.
A fraction of an ounce of the nerve agent on the skin can be fatal.
Exposure to the gas causes pupils to shrink to pinpoint sizes and foaming at the lips.
Symptoms include paralysis, loss of consciousness and respiratory failure.
Treatment needs to be given straight away and antidotes include Atropine and pralidoxime chloride.
Syria is believed to have one of the largest arsenals in the world of chemical weapons, including Sarin and mustard gas.
A U.N. team is in Syria investigating allegations that both rebels and army forces used poison gas in the past, one of the main disputes in international diplomacy over Syria.
The European Union condemned the suspected use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces Wednesday as ‘totally unacceptable’, demanding an immediate investigation.
EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton said charges by Syria’s main opposition group that the chemical attack ‘should be immediately and thoroughly investigated.’
A UN mission in Syria to probe previous allegations of chemical weapons use ‘must be allowed full and unhindered access to all sites,’ Ashton said, according to a spokesperson.
‘The EU reiterates that any use of chemical weapons, by any side in Syria, would be totally unacceptable,’ she said.
The authorities and all other parties in Syria ‘need to provide all necessary support to and cooperation with the mission’s operations,’ Ashton said as she gathered EU foreign ministers for a meeting on the crisis in Egypt.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, speaking in Brussels, said if proven the use of chemical weapons would ‘not only be a massacre, but also an unprecedented atrocity’.
Fabius said however that the accusations from the Syrian opposition were ‘not yet verified’.
The White House says it’s ‘deeply concerned’ about reports that chemical weapons were used by Syria’s government against civilians.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest says the U.S. strongly condemns any use of chemical weapons and says the Obama administration is urgently working to gather information. Earnest says the U.S. is asking the U.N. to investigate and wants a Security Council debate.
Syria must allow the UN inspectors immediate access to investigate claims that chemical weapons were used in the attack, William Hague has demanded.
Many women and children were among the dead. The area reportedly bombed is residential
The Foreign Secretary said that uncorroborated reports of toxic agents being used would mark a ‘shocking escalation’ if they are verified and warned that those who use them ‘should be in no doubt that we will work in every way we can to hold them to account’.
Mr Hague said: ‘I am deeply concerned by reports that hundreds of people, including children, have been killed in air strikes and a chemical weapons attack on rebel-held areas near Damascus.‘
He added before a meeting with his French counterpart: ‘I hope this will wake up some who have supported the Assad regime to realise its murderous and barbaric nature.’
Russia, too, urged an ‘objective’ investigation but Assad’s biggest foreign ally also heaped scepticism on his enemies’ claims.
A foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow said the release of gas after UN inspectors arrived suggested that it was a rebel ‘provocation’ to discredit Syria’s government.
Victim: A Syrian girl receiving treatment at a makeshift hospital, in Arbeen, Damascus
These horrendous pictures were provided by citizen journalists in Syria
‘These reports are uncorroborated and we are urgently seeking more information. But it is clear that if they are verified, it would mark a shocking escalation in the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
‘Those who order the use of chemical weapons, and those who use them, should be in no doubt that we will work in every way we can to hold them to account.
‘I call on the Syrian government to allow immediate access to the area for the UN team currently investigating previous allegations of chemical weapons use. The UK will be raising this incident at the UN Security Council.’
Syria’s neighbour Turkey said it was clear that chemical weapons had been used.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in an interview broadcast on Turkey’s Kanal 24 television: ‘Use of chemical weapons in Syria is evident from the footage coming from there.
‘We have called for an immediate investigation by the U.N. teams.’
A nurse at Douma Emergency Collection facility, Bayan Baker, said the death toll, as collated from medical centres in the suburbs east of Damascus, was 213.
‘Many of the casualties are women and children. They arrived with their pupil dilated, cold limbs and foam in their mouths. The doctors say these are typical symptoms of nerve gas victims,’ the nurse said.
Grim toll: Fighting in Syria has killed an estimated 100,000 people so far
Extensive amateur video and photographs purporting to show victims appeared on the Internet. A video puportedly shot in the Kafr Batna neighbourhood showed a room filled with more than 90 bodies, many of them children and a few women and elderly men.
ALLEGED CHEMICAL WEAPON ATTACKS IN SYRIA’S CIVIL WAR
In July 2012, the Syrian government admitted that Syria had stocks of chemical weapons, but said they would would never be used ‘inside Syria’.
In March this year it was reported that chemical weapons were used by rebels in the town of Khan al-Assal in northern Syria, killing 16.
On the same day as the attack in Khan al-Assal, the opposition uploaded videos they claimed showed victims of a bombardment in the village of al-Otaybeh near Damascus.
On March 24 it was reported that two people were killed and ‘dozens’ injured in Adra by ‘chemical phosphorus bombs’.
On April 29 eyewitnesses said helicopters dropped canisters onto the town of Saraqeb, hospitalising eight.
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 photograph taken by activists in Douma showed the bodies of at least 16 children and three adults, one wearing combat fatigues, laid at the floor of a room in a medical facility where bodies were collected.
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. (local time). Most of those killed were in their homes,’ Omar said.
Syrian state television quoted a source as saying there was ‘no truth whatsoever’ to the reports.
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.
Activists say most of those killed were in their homes
Heartbreak: Relatives and activists inspect the bodies of the dead
British Foreign Secretary William Hague says the gas attacks are a ‘shocking escalation’
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 with accusations that it was the rebels that used chemical weapons, which the rebels 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.
A Syrian family sits in a tent at Kawergost refugee camp in Iraq. Around 34,000 Syrians, the vast majority of them Kurds, have fled the region over a five days
Desperate: Syrian refugees cross into Iraq at the Peshkhabour border point in Dahuk
Around 30,000 Syrians, the vast majority of them Kurds, have fled the region over a five-day stretch and crossed the border to the self-ruled Kurdish region of northern Iraq
Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby yesterday called for United Nations inspectors to immediately investigate reports of the chemical attack.
‘The secretary general said in a statement he was surprised this deplorable crime would happen during the visit of a team of international investigators with the United Nations who are already tasked with investigating chemical weapons use,’ the official news agency MENA said.
‘He called on the inspectors to head immediately to the eastern Ghouta (suburb of Damascus) to determine what happened.’
The timing and location of the reported chemical weapons use – just three days after the team of U.N. chemical experts checked in to a Damascus hotel a few miles to the east at the start of their mission – was surprising.
‘Logically, it would make little sense for the Syrian government to employ chemical agents at such a time, particularly given the relatively close proximity of the targeted towns (to the U.N. team),’ said Charles Lister, analysts at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre.
‘Nonetheless, the Ghouta region (where the attacks were reported) is well known for its opposition leanings.
Authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan have imposed a quota in an effort to limit the flood of refugees
Jabhat al-Nusra has had a long-time presence there and the region has borne the brunt of sustained military pressure for months now,’ he said, referring to a hardline Sunni Islamist rebel group allied to al Qaeda.
‘While it is clearly impossible to confirm the chemical weapons claim, it is clear from videos uploaded by reliable accounts that a large number of people have died.’
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said dozens of people were killed, including children, in fierce bombardment. It said Mouadamiya, southwest of the capital, came under the heaviest attack since the start of the two-year conflict.
The Observatory called on the U.N. experts and international organisations to visit the affected areas to ensure aid could be delivered and to ‘launch an investigation to determine who was responsible for the bombardment and hold them to account’.
Exodus: The Syrians are fleeing into the Duhok region in north-west Iraq
Meanwhile, about 35,000 refugees, believed to be mainly Syrian Kurds, have entered Iraq since last Thursday, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said.
UNHCR officials told an internal U.N. meeting in Baghdad on Monday that up to 100,000 Syrian refugees could be expected to flee to Iraq within the next month, if the current pace continued, U.N. sources said.
Fleeing bombardments and sectarian tensions in parts of northern Syria including Aleppo and Efrin, they arrive exhausted, with many children dehydrated from walking in the scorching heat.
U.S. ‘OPPOSES INTERVENTION BECAUSE OF FEARS OVER SYRIAN REBELS’
The U.S. opposes even limited military intervention in Syria because it believes rebels fighting the Assad regime wouldn’t support American interests if they seized power.
The Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, says the U.S. is capable of eliminating Syrian President Bashar Assad’s air force and shifting momentum back toward the opposition.
But he says this would commit the U.S. to another war and offer no peace strategy in a nation plagued by ethnic rivalries.
Dempsey says Syria is not about choosing between two sides. It means choosing one among many and that side must be ready to promote U.S. interests. He said: ‘Today, they are not.’
Dempsey’s assessment came in a letter to Rep. Eliot Engel of New York. A copy was obtained by The Associated Press.
20 Comments on "Nerve Gas Attack in Syria"
BillT on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 1:21 am
There is so much bullshit flying in the Middle East that it should be all fertile ground now and not desert.
As I said above … how much is real? How much staged? And when and where were these pics taken?
Are we to believe a minion rag of the Empire? I don’t. The UK is so deep into this that they will say anything the Empire wants. Kiss, kiss, kiss.
Anyway, Why don’t they post pictures of all of our innocent drone victims around the world? Why don’t we see pictures of the thousands killed in Iraq? Afghanistan? Etc? The US has been responsible for more innocent deaths since WW2 than all of the people killed in WW2.
Repent on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 2:12 am
Clearly the powers that be, dismayed that false flag attacks no longer work at home, are moving the stage to other countries.
The US government has zero credibility to act on this matter. Here’s a link to what’s really going on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQFfhqUBacg&feature=player_embedded#t=1
Control your reaction and they have no power over us!
ricardo on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 2:28 am
Barbarity, This what the ZOG is planning for humanity, this is what we get for our idiocy.
actioncjackson on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 2:37 am
Absolutely horrible tragedy. Kind of off topic but I’ve had an epiphany of sorts that I want to share, and I’m not trying to be negative, just observative. Regarding the ultimate question, ‘What is the meaning of life and the universe?’ The ultimate purpose of having a beginning, is to have an ending. The meaning of life is to end. That’s a pretty wild thing to think about. It’s not the whole puzzle but I think that’s part of it.
BillT on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 3:27 am
Action, the universe moves in cycles of birth, growth and eventual death. If you watch the videos about the earth’s creation over the last 4.5 billion years, you can see how many times this has happened in the past. Even the dinosaurs lasted millions of years. Homo sapiens will be in and out in less than a few million.
DC on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 4:49 am
Faked photos? Or real photos of other US massacres? Hard to say. The US certainly has no shortage of photos of its endless war on humanity.
Whatever the source of these pictures, one thing is clear. The US regime was desperately seeking something to draw the spotlight away from the Snowden\NSA affair, and the US criminal grounding of the Bolivian Presidents plane, AND the continued decay of the economy in the ‘homeland’ etc…etc…etc.
Whether the US actually murdered people(I mean the ones in the pics, its murders lots of people every single day) to stage this phoney ‘attack’ is almost beside the point. The key thing is people need to emphatically refuse to accept more false US\UK narratives that are already being spun.
For example, lot pics of children. Why would President Assad’s military attack his own citizens children? What military value is there in that? None! But it sure will tug at the heartstrings of the same idiot ‘liberals’ that bought into the ‘Gaddafi’s troops are being given viagra to rape their own women’, or the infamous Kuwaiti babies being thrown from there incubators fable.
There is NO military value, or even terror value, in gassing your own people, if that was someones objective. Even Hitler didnt use gas during WW2, even when his back was against the wall and the end was clearly in sight. President Assad has been *successfully* defending his people against the US financed and equipped terrorists. Again, this is not something someone holding there own and winning the fight does.
Remember those lies? Well, probably quite a few don’t-but I sure remember. The lies fly so fast and thick from London and Washington these days well likely never know if 1300 died, or 10 or none. But the US is clearly desperate to have its next war, to cover up its other endless crimes.
GregT on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 4:50 am
“Barbarity, This what the ZOG is planning for humanity, this is what we get for our idiocy.”
Finally, something we can agree on. They will win by inciting hatred, intolerance, racism, fear and violence. Divide and conquer, it is the oldest strategy in the book, and we still haven’t figured it out.
Plantagenet on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 5:27 am
Obama warned them not to cross his “red line” n the use of WMDs in Syria. He warned them. He made it very clear he means business.
Arthur on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 5:29 am
The Syrian government has zero interest in orchestrating this horror among civilians. The jihadists however do have an interest in pulling the US over the red line and let US forces do the dirty work for them, assuming for a moment this event is not a hoax.
But since the recent developments in Egypt I think that the US is no longer interested in intervention.
drgoodword on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 7:34 am
While the true identity of these horrors’ author is debatable (given the complexity of the region’s current dynamics), the purpose seems pretty clear: to provide the U.S. and its allies enough popular domestic support/acquiescence to facilitate a formal and overt military intrusion into Syria, culminating in an all too familiar regime change in Damascus.
TIKIMAN on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 12:07 pm
Obama will draw anothe rline in the sand. He will DO NOTHING like the coward always does. Maybe he’ll give a speech about the 3 black thugs who hated white people and killed a random tourist from Australia. Heh I doubt it. He only cares about crime againt black people. The failure of this president is mind blowing.
GregT on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 3:18 pm
Over 100,000 brutal murders in Mexico, right across the border from the Kingdom of Obama, and he hasn’t done anything at all. What makes you guys believe that Obama has any interests at all in human rights?
Oh, and in case you haven’t figured it out already, Obama isn’t in charge. He is nothing more than a political puppet, hired to convince you, the sheep , that it is OK to spend your tax payers dollars on wars that benefit your owners, while your economy collapses, your constitution is torn apart and all of your jobs are shipped over seas.
Keep drinking the cool aid, everything will be fine in the Empire, until it has been completely destroyed from within.
PrestonSturges on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 4:10 pm
Nerve gas attack in Syria provokes totally incoherent hatred from goobers. Yeah you guys are totally ready to be in charge. Go ask mommy for a juice box.
rollin on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 6:09 pm
When humans have the courage not to kill, then they will become men and women. Until then they are just weaklings.
I can not reconcile the line between murder by “conventional” weapons and things like murder by gas weapons. Being blown apart or napalmed is still being dead.
Does the military and it’s rulers mean to say that gassing people is just too horrible even for them. I doubt it. They keep inventing new and horrible ways to kill people and use them.
bobinget on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 7:05 pm
Ultimately, if anyone is responsible for this horrible
freak show it’s the Russians who sold this gas to the Assad regime in the first place and continues to support the Syrian government diplomatically and militarily. For instance, BOTH China and Russia won’t permit UN observers already on the ground to investigate.
President O was foolish to draw a red line on chemical weapons here. This proxy war, between various Muslim factions is really none of our business, as brutal as it is. We (the US) can’t do much except, perhaps, destroy those chems we know about with drones as dangerous as this is. Russia will be so so pissed. (because they are guilty as hell)
BTW.. Preston Struges again hits the nail on the head with fewer word then this poor writer.
Again, I implore posters here to be more civil and cut the anti America crap, it only classes you as a ‘goober’.
GregT on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 8:01 pm
Just like Sadam Hussein gassing and killing hundreds of Kurds, and possessing weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were ever found, Sadam was hung, and the ‘coalition’ continued on slaughtering over 150,000 people, for 5 more years after they killed him.
Mission accomplished?
I am not anti American, I am anti murder, and I have many good friends from the US that completely agree with me.
PrestonSturges on Thu, 22nd Aug 2013 8:21 pm
If this attack is anything like it’s been described with rockets launched at multiple locations (show us the rocket debris), this would be a level of logistical organization about 20 times beyond anything the rebels have ever done.
dissident on Fri, 23rd Aug 2013 12:46 am
Why only use nerve gas on such rare occasions and in so few locations? There have been two case over the whole conflict period. If the nerve gas and chemical agents were tools of war like tanks and aircraft then you would use them to win. That’s right to win. Using them in a way does not contribute to making gains on the battle front and instead just enough to provoke intervention by powerful foreign forces that can wipe you out is not a plausible tactic.
Assad’s regime has been gaining on the ground for months. So this is not a desperation move by his forces. This is clearly a ploy by the “rebels” to get the USA and its allies to save their sorry Salafist asses. Too bad people in the west are such suckers for these ploys. In fact, it is the western public that is the ultimate reason for such dirty tricks. It’s so easy to con. If there was more skepticism then the incentive would not be there.
GregT on Fri, 23rd Aug 2013 5:46 am
“This is clearly a ploy by the “rebels” to get the USA and its allies to save their sorry Salafist asses.”
Or, is it a ploy, by those that have a vested interest in yet another destabilized Middle Eastern country, while sacrificing the lives of the sons and daughters and the monetary resources, of the American public?
But then again, I’m apparantly an anti American ‘goober’. So why should I give a damn whether American people’s kids are killed, and American people’s livelihoods are spent on a civil war in another country, that clearly doesn’t care for American ideology?
stephen wallsworth on Fri, 23rd Aug 2013 12:48 pm
Assad should be tried and convicted of mass war crimes against innocent people and quickly Russia should be made aware of these crimes that they have condoned and pressured into not supporting the Assad regime