…Damascus suffered an appalling gas attack in which hundreds died, but other incidents in history have been much worse.

IT was a singularly evil chemical weapons attack, but tragically the hundreds killed in Damascus just two weeks ago were the latest victims in a long history of the use of poison gas to kill soldiers and civilians. This entry is an examination of past atrocities where many exacted an even greater toll:

IRAQ AGAINST THE KURDS… Saddam Hussein’s regime used chemical weapons to remove Kurds from around 40 villages in northern Iraq. On March 16, 1988, he carried out the most deadly attack, dropping poisons including mustard gas, sarin and VX on the town of Halabja. Men, women and children choked to death in the indiscriminate attack.

The atrocity prompted the United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997, an international pact banning production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons. Only seven nations (including Syria) are not signatories. The death toll in Halabja was reported as being up to 5,000.

IRAN-IRAQ WAR, 1980-88… Hussein used sarin and mustard gas against Iran to tip the war in Iraq’s favour and forced Tehran to negotiate. But newly declassified CIA documents revealed recently the US knew about the use of chemical weapons but refused to act because Washington feared an Iranian victory. Up to 20,000 people were killed in the 8-year war.

VIETNAM… Between 1965 and 1975, in the bitter war against North Vietnam, the US dropped millions of tons of incendiary napalm to defoliate dense forests in which enemy fighters were hiding. The jelly-like substance ignited and stuck to skin, burning through muscle and bone, causing hideous injury and often death. America also dropped 50 million tons of Agent Orange, a super-strength chemical herbicide, to destroy all plants. But poisonous dioxins seeped into the soil and water supply, entering into the food chain and leading to severe health problems and disabilities for generations. More than a million people perished, as well as 400,000 Vietnamese children born with birth defects were recorded due to exposure to Agent Orange.

HITLER… Hitler refrained from using chemical weapons in battle but millions of Jews were transported to extermination camps, notably Auschwitz in Poland, and were suffocated in gas chambers using cyanide-based Zyklon B. Some six million Jews died in the Holocaust, plus gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, and Soviet prisoners.

WORLD WAR TWO… Between 1937 and 1945, Japan launched both chemical and biological attacks while invading China. Emperor Hirohito authorised use of toxic gas on more than 2,000 occasions. In 1941, members of a secretive Japanese research and development facility (Unit 731) airdropped fleas contaminated with the bubonic plague on the Chinese city of Changde. Tens of thousands were reported killed.

ITALO-ABNYSSINIAN WAR… Ignoring the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical or biological agents in war, Mussolini’s Italy unleashed mustard gas during its invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Retaliating for the killing of one of its pilots, the air force dropped up to 500 tonnes of poison. An estimated 15,000 perished.

FIRST WORLD WAR… Known as the ‘chemists’ war’ for introducing deadly poison to combat. In 1915, at Ypres, Belgium, Germany opened thousands of canisters of chlorine upwind of Allied troops, condemning many to an agonising death. By 1918 chemical weapons had proliferated on both sides – including phosgene, cyanide and mustard gas. Horrified by the effects, 15 countries signed the Geneva Protocol. Around 90,000 were killed and more than one million people were injured.