(Reuters) - The latest report on Syria
by the global chemical weapons watchdog offers further evidence that the
Syrian government repeatedly attacked its own citizens with poison gas,
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Tuesday. The 117-page report by
a fact-finding mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW) includes eyewitness accounts of helicopters
dropping barrel bombs with toxic chemicals. The findings are consistent
with two previous reports by the mission but offer much more detail. After
a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council on progress in
destroying Syria's chemical weapons program, Power said the new report
added credence to allegations that the Syrian government used chlorine
gas as a weapon in its four-year-old civil war after pledging to give up
its toxic arsenal. "UNSC met on Syria CW today and reviewed more compelling eyewitness evidence of chlorine gas use by Syrian regime," Power said on her Twitter feed. "32
witnesses saw or heard sound of helicopters as bombs struck; 29 smelled
chlorine," she added. "Only Syrian regime uses helos (helicopters)." The third OPCW report does not say who used chemical weapons. Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari declined to comment. The
report contains photographs of what eyewitnesses told investigators
were barrel bombs containing chlorine that were dropped from
helicopters. It also includes a screen-grab from a video provided by one
of the witnesses to some of the attacks that shows a yellow cloud some
50 meters (yards) high after the impact of a barrel with toxic
chemicals. The multiple
incidents of alleged chlorine attacks were in the villages of Talmanes,
Al Tamanah and Kafr Zita. Most took place in April and May 2014. There
were two alleged attacks in Talmanes, five in Al Tamanah, and 14 in Kafr
Zita, where the most recent was Aug. 30. The
effort to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons program was launched after
a sarin gas attack on Aug. 21, 2013 that killed hundreds of civilians
in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. President
Bashar al-Assad's government and rebel forces blamed each other for the
Ghouta strike and other chemical weapons attacks, though Western
government's blame Assad. Damascus joined the OPCW, without admitting
responsibility for Ghouta, after the United States threatened military
intervention. After
briefing the 15-nation Security Council, U.N. disarmament chief Angela
Kane told reporters the OPCW mission was still trying to clarify gaps in
Syrian chemical weapons declaration and hoped to destroy all remaining
production facilities by June.
Watchdog offers more proof Syria government used chemical arms: U.S.

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