Category Archives: OPCW

The Observer view on the smoking gun that should force Assad to face justice

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For the first time, the world’s chemical weapons watchdog has directly accused Syria’s leadership of ordering illegal attacks on its people

There is a temptation, to which some European governments and politicians are prey, to imagine that Syria’s civil war is over. It would, after all, be politically convenient if the millions of refugees languishing in Turkey and Jordan were to go home, rather than serve as a constant reminder of the EU’s chronic fear of migrants.

An end to the war would remove a prime cause of instability in the Levant and eastern Mediterranean region. Russia and Iran would have less excuse to play games of geopolitical chance with civilian lives. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s irascible president, would have less to complain about.

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Syrian regime blamed for sarin gas attacks in landmark report

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Report by UN-aligned body that oversees chemical weapons use is hailed by rights groups

The UN-aligned body that oversees chemical weapons use has for the first time blamed the Syrian regime for using sarin gas on the battlefield in a report hailed by rights groups as a landmark moment with implications for war crimes investigations.

The report, released on Wednesday by the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), accuses the Syrian Air Force of twice using sarin to attack the town of Ltamenah in late March 2017. It also found that regime aircraft had bombed the same town with chlorine gas in the same week.

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OPCW report set to blame Syria chemical attacks on Bashar al-Assad

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Watchdog to release first report blaming president for attacks during the conflict

The UN’s chemical weapons watchdog is expected to release its first report explicitly blaming Bashar al-Assad for sarin and chlorine gas attacks on civilians in Syria as efforts to establish accountability for the use of chemical agents in the nine-year-old conflict gain momentum.

Observers anticipate that public and classified versions of a report by a new unit at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will be published on Wednesday, close to the anniversaries of a major chlorine attack on the then rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma that killed at least 85 people in 2018 as well as a deadly sarin attack on Khan Sheikhun in 2017 which killed at least 89. The report is believed to focus on 2017 attacks on the village of al-Lataminah.

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Inquiry strikes blow to Russian denials of Syria chemical attack

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UN watchdog’s investigation rebuts claims it manipulated evidence of Douma incident

A Russia-led campaign that claimed the UN weapons watchdog had manipulated evidence of a Syrian government chemical weapons attack has been dealt a blow by an official inquiry showing that two former employees hailed as whistleblowers had little direct access to the evidence and inflated their role.

The independent inquiry commissioned by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) shows that one of the two had never been on the team investigating the April 2018 attack in Douma and the other was only on the team for a brief period.

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Chemical weapons watchdog defends Syria report after leaks

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Whistleblower claims OPCW’s findings misrepresented some facts over 2018 chlorine attack

The head of the world’s chemical weapons watchdog has defended its conclusion that chlorine was used in an attack in Syria in April 2018, after a whistleblower alleged the report misrepresented some of the facts amid Russian claims that the watchdog is being politicised by the west.

WikiLeaks at the weekend published an email from a member of the fact-finding team that investigated the attack which accused the body of altering the original findings of investigators to make evidence of a chemical attack seem more conclusive.

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