United Nations human rights investigators concluded that the Syrian regime has launched 33 chemical attacks since it announced plans for dismantling its chemical weapons arsenal by the end of 2013, fueling concerns about chemical attacks being used in the upcoming Idlib battle.
Syrian regime forces fired chlorine, a banned chemical weapon, on a rebel-held Damascus suburb and on Idlib province this year, in attacks that constitute war crimes, UN human rights investigators said Wednesday.
The three incidents bring to 39 the number of chemical attacks which the Commission of Inquiry on Syria has documented since 2013, including 33 attributed to the government, a UN official told Reuters.
“To recapture eastern Ghouta in April, government forces launched numerous indiscriminate attacks in densely populated civilian areas, which included the use of chemical weapons,” the UN report said.
“The Commission concludes that, on these two occasions, government forces and or affiliated militias committed the war crimes of using prohibited weapons and launching indiscriminate attacks in civilian-populated areas in eastern Ghouta,” the UN report stated.
Standing before German lawmakers, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen began her speech by highlighting the past repeated use of chemical weapons by Syrian regime head Bashar Assad. In April, US, UK and French forces retaliated with airstrikes.
Along with diplomacy, von der Leyen said, "credible deterrence" is also needed to prevent the future use of chemical weapons.
Germany "cannot continue to act as if this doesn't affect us," von der Leyen went on, adding that as part of the international community, the country "must be prepared, because we do not know what concrete situation we will face."
With the drums of war rolling loud for Syria’s Idlib, the Turkish army continued arming Syrian opposition forces and sending more reinforcements to units along the border with Syria.
Fears are mounting over a widespread regime attack on Idlib.
Syrian opposition sources told Reuters that Turkey has stepped up arms supplies to help them counter any future attack.
The Turkish Anadolu Agency reported that Turkish intelligence services captured a 2013 bombing suspect in secret Syria mission.
Turkish intelligence conducted a secret operation for capturing the prime suspect in one of the deadliest bombings in Turkey's history, Turkish officials said on Wednesday.
Yusuf Nazik, a Turkish citizen, was captured in the coastal Syrian city of Latakia and then brought to Turkey by the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT). Officials did not say when the operation took place.
