CHEMICAL ATTACKS IN SYRIA: AIDED WITH A RUSSIAN SIGNATURE

Missiles used in last month’s nerve gas attack in Syria had Russian writing on the side, United Nations weapons inspectors have said.

The long-awaited report said there was ‘clear and convincing evidence’ that deadly sarin gas was used in the attack on a Damascus suburb that killed more than 1,400 people, many of them children.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the evidence suggested the incident was the world’s worst chemical weapons attack for 25 years.

‘This is a war crime and a grave violation of international law,’ Mr Ban said. ‘The results are overwhelming and indisputable. The facts speak for themselves.’

Foreign Secretary William Hague has described the report as ‘damning’ and ‘fully consistent’ with Britain’s assessment that government forces were behind the attack.

Presenting the report, which does not attribute any blame for the attacks, Mr Ban said the inspectors concluded chemical weapons ‘were used on a relatively large scale’ in the attack.

They had ‘collected clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used in the Ein Tarma, Moadamiyah and Zalmalka in the Ghouta area of Damascus’.

Mr Ban said: ‘The United Nations mission has now confirmed, unequivocally and objectively, that chemical weapons have been used in Syria.

‘The international community has a responsibility to hold the perpetrators accountable and to ensure that chemical weapons never re-emerge as an instrument of warfare.’

He called on the Security Council to ‘move quickly to consider and implement’ the plan for the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons through a ‘clear resolution’.

He said there ‘should be consequences for non-compliance’ by the Assad regime but also warned the international community not to be ‘blind’ to other widespread crimes committed by the Syrian government.

‘This is the most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them in Halabja in 1988. The international community has pledged to prevent any such horror from recurring, yet it has happened again,’ he said.

‘This is a matter that truly affects international peace and security. After two and a half years of tragedy, now is the moment for the Security Council to uphold its political and moral responsibilities and demonstrate the political will to move forward in a decisive manner.

‘My hope is that this incident will serve as a wake-up call for more determined efforts to resolve the conflict and end the unbearable suffering of the Syrian people.

‘We need to do everything we can to bring the parties to the negotiating table. This is the only path to a durable solution.’

Although the team was not mandated to establish who used the banned weapons, Mr Ban said those responsible should be ‘brought to justice’.

He said: ‘As I have repeatedly said, those perpetrators who have used the chemical weapons or any other weapon of mass destruction in the future will have to be brought to justice. This is a firm principle of the UN.’

Mr Hague said the UN’s findings backed the West’s claims that Syrian government forces were behind the attack.

He said: ‘This report, which we are analysing in detail, is clearly very damning. It confirms that there was indeed a large-scale chemical weapons attack on the areas east of Damascus in the early hours of August 21.

‘It confirms that this was an attack against civilians, against children and a large number of people were killed and it is fully consistent with everything we have always argued about this attack – that sarin was used, that it was on a large scale.’

He added: ‘We have always believed that this was the work, the responsibility of the Assad regime and everything we can see in this report is fully consistent with that.’

Mr Hague said he was ‘hopeful’ of an international deal for Syria to give up its chemical weapons but warned it would be a hugely challenging process.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, he said it was clear that it was the Syrian regime that held the chemical weapons, and not the opposition.

He said the talks between Russia and America had finally forced Syria’s government to admit their possession of the deadly weapons.

He said: ‘He (Assad) has to declare the chemical weapons that he has previously denied possessing and hand them over.

‘These are in the regime, there’s no consideration being given to securing weapons from the opposition – even the Russians aren’t considering getting weapons from the opposition.’

He insisted that British military personnel would not be sent into the war-torn country.

‘We will not be sending British troops for this or anything else in Syria,’ Mr Hague said.

‘No boots on the ground, no boots will be deployed. I don’t think that will be a good way of providing security in Syria.’

The United States, Britain and France blame Assad’s forces for the attack and say it killed more than 1,400 people. The government, backed by Russia, denies the charge and blames opposition rebels.

The details of the report’s contents emerged as the western allies, meeting in Paris, warned Syria of ‘serious consequences’ if it stalls on handing over its chemical weapons.

Kickstarting a week of intense diplomatic activity in the wake of a weekend US-Russia deal on the proposed disarmament, the three powers also moved to bolster rebels fighting Assad’s regime and reiterated calls for the Syrian president to step down.

The tough tone triggered an immediate warning from Russia that western sabre-rattling could derail efforts to bring the regime and rebels to the table for negotiations aimed at ending a civil war that has raged for over two years and left more than 110,000 people dead.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said it was vital that the allies, who came to the brink of launching air strikes against Assad earlier this month, maintain the pressure on the regime.

‘If Assad fails to comply with the terms of this framework make no mistake we are all agreed, and that includes Russia, that there will be consequences,’ Kerry said.

‘If the Assad regime believes that this is not enforceable and we are not serious, they will play games.’

British Foreign Minister William Hague added: ‘The pressure is on them (the Syrians) to comply with this agreement in full. The world must be prepared to hold them to account if they don’t.’

The United States and Russia agreed in Geneva on Saturday that an ambitious accord aimed at eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014 be enshrined in a Security Council resolution backed up by the threat of unspecified sanctions in the event of non-compliance.

Russia has made it clear it will block any move to write an explicit authorisation for the use of military force into the resolution.

Lavrov said that kind of approach would scupper hopes of a resumption of suspended peace negotiations in Geneva.

‘If for someone it is more important to constantly threaten… that is another path to wrecking completely the chances of calling the Geneva-2 conference,’ Lavrov told journalists in Moscow.

The US-Russia deal agreed on Saturday gives Assad a week to hand over details of his chemical weapons stockpiles and calls for inspections of what the United States says are some 45 sites linked to the program, which is to be underway by November with the aim of neutralizing the country’s chemical capacity by mid-2014.

The deal was greeted with dismay by rebel leaders, who fear that the West’s willingness to do business with Assad will consolidate his grip on power and stall the momentum of moves to provide them with the arms they need to tilt the balance of the civil war in their favour.

Fabius and Kerry attempted to reassure the rebels that they had not been forgotten with the French minister announcing an international meeting with leaders of the Syrian National Coalition on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next week.

‘We know that in order to negotiate a political solution, there has to be a strong opposition,’ Fabius said.

France has long championed the opposition coalition but there is concern in other western capitals about the prominent role that hardened Islamist fighters are playing in the fight against Assad’s forces.

Kerry also emphasized that Assad’s agreement to the chemical weapons handover did not give him any more right to remain in power.

‘Nothing in what we’ve done is meant to offer any notion to Assad … that he has some extended period as a leader, so-called,’ Kerry said.

In Geneva, the chairman of a U.N. war crimes panel today said it was investigating 14 suspected chemical attacks in Syria.

Commission chairman Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said the Geneva-based U.N. panel had not pinpointed the chemical used in the attacks and was awaiting evidence from the U.N. chemical weapons inspectors.

Mr Pinheiro told reporters the commission believes that both President Bashar Assad’s government and the rebels had committed war crimes.

But he said while Assad had committed crimes against humanity, rebel groups have not ‘because He said the commission had been investigating 14 alleged chemical attacks since September 2011, adding that they had so far been unable to assign blame. He said earlier they were awaiting details from today’s UN report.

Mr Pinheiro emphasised that the ‘vast majority’ of casualties in Syria’s civil wars is from conventional weapons like guns and mortars.

Last week, Mr Ban – who was apparently unaware that his comments were being broadcast on UN television – also said that the Assad regime had ‘committed many crimes against humanity.’

Promoting Britain’s stance against intervention, Mr Hague insisted the aim is to ‘bring about a peaceful end’ to the brutal civil war, now in its third year.

But he conceded that the ‘credible threat of military force’ was a key step in the bid to reach a resolution.

Mr Kerry said all the countries involved, including Russia, were agreed that if Assad fails to comply ‘there will be consequences’.

He said: ‘What we achieve in this agreement as we translate the Geneva agreement into a United Nations resolution has to be strong and it has to be forceful, it has to be real, it has to be accountable, it has to be transparent, it has to be timely.

‘All of those things are critical and it has to be enforced. If the Assad regime believes that this is not enforceable that we are not serious they will play games.’

He went on: ‘We will not tolerate avoidance or anything less than full compliance by the Assad regime to the core principles of what has been achieved here.

‘If Assad fails to comply with the terms of this framework, make no mistake, we are all agreed, and that includes Russia, that there will be consequences.’