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

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

Bethan McKernan Middle East correspondent
Mon 6 Apr 2020 17.32 BST
Last modified on Mon 6 Apr 2020 20.33 BST

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.

The investigation is the outcome of new powers granted to the OPCW by a 2018 UN resolution specifically calling for the watchdog to “put in place arrangements to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic by identifying and reporting on all information potentially relevant to the origin of those chemical weapons”. Previously, OPCW fact-finding missions did not have the mandate to apportion blame in chemical weapons attacks.

The resulting newly created investigation and identification team (IIT) at the OPCW was designed as a work-around to counter Russia, Syria’s closest political ally. Moscow has repeatedly used international forums - and its veto as a permanent member of the UN security council - to block independent investigations into chemical weapons attacks allegedly launched by the Assad regime.

The IIT report’s expected findings could trigger new sanctions on Syrian officials and are likely to lead to renewed accusations from Moscow, Tehran and Damascus that the OPCW’s work has been politicised by western nations. The charge that Russia permits, or covers up, the regime’s use of chemical weapons on Syrian civilians is one of the most bitter diplomatic flashpoints between Russia and the west.

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