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Syrian Rebels Accuse Government of Chemical Attack
Scores Killed in Syria, With Signs of Chemical War
(about 3 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian government pounded rebellious areas east of the capital, Damascus, early Wednesday, and antigovernment activists said some rockets included chemical weapons that killed scores of people, and possibly hundreds.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Scores of men, women and children were killed outside Damascus Wednesday in an attack marked by the telltale signs of chemical weapons: row after row of corpses without visible injury; hospitals flooded with victims, gasping for breath, trembling and staring ahead languidly; images of a gray cloud bursting over a neighborhood.
Photographs and videos showed rooms full of lifeless bodies laid out in rows, some wrapped in white cloths, others lined up in mass graves. Some showed victims staring and motionless, others twitching uncontrollably.
But even with videos, witness accounts and testimonies by emergency medics, it was impossible to say for certain how many people had been killed and what exactly had killed them. The rebels blamed the government, the government denied involvement and Russia accused the rebels of staging the attack to implicate President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
The Syrian government vociferously denied mounting any chemical attack, and its ally Russia accused Syrian rebels of launching a rocket with an unknown chemical agent that had caused civilian casualties, calling it a preplanned effort to accuse the government of President Bashar al-Assad of using chemical weapons. A team of weapons investigators sent by the United Nations arrived in the country on Sunday to begin looking into several other reports of chemical weapons use.
Images of death and chaos poured out of Syria after what may be the single deadliest attack in more than two years of civil war. Videos posted online showed dozens of lifeless bodies, men wrapped in burial shrouds and children, some still in diapers. There were hospital scenes of corpses and the stricken sprawled on gurneys and tile floors as medics struggled to resuscitate them.
The total death toll remained unclear, although though the images, along with testimonies provided by antigovernment activists and medical personnel, indicated at least scores of victims, including men, women and children. Some opposition estimates went as high as 1,000.
Getting to the bottom of the assault could well alter the course of the conflict and affect the level of the West’s involvement.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which follows the conflict from Britain through a network of contacts inside Syria, said the attacks took place in the suburbs of Zamalka, Ein Terma and Erbeen, all of which are east of Damascus and have a strong rebel presence.
President Obama said almost exactly a year ago that the use of chemical weapons was a red line. But the subsequent conclusion by the White House that the Syrian Army had used chemical weapons did not bring about a marked shift in American engagement.
The White House said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned” by the reports and was still trying to verify what had happened but “strongly condemns any and all use of chemical weapons” and called for a United Nations investigation and Security Council consultations.
This latest attack, by far the largest chemical strike yet alleged, could tip that balance — as many foes of Mr. Assad hope it will.
“Those responsible for the use of chemical weapons must be held accountable,” said the statement, issued by Joshua Earnest, the principal deputy White House press secretary. Other countries, including Britain and France, offered similar expressions of concern.
But like so much in Syria, where the government bars most reporters from working and the opposition heavily filters the information it lets out, the truth remains elusive.
Unlike the videos often uploaded by all sides in Syria’s civil war, the images on Wednesday showed very little blood. Few of the victims appeared to have conventional injuries; most appeared to have suffocated.
The attack was especially conspicuous given the presence in Damascus of a team sent by the United Nations to investigate chemical strikes reportedly waged earlier in the war. The United States, the European Union and other world powers called for the investigators to visit the site of Wednesday’s attack.
In one video, medical workers move through a room full of apparently lifeless young men in their underclothing. In another, about 80 bodies, including those of about a dozen children and many women, lie on a tile floor.
The Security Council, meeting in emergency session, issued a statement calling for a prompt investigation of the allegations and a cease-fire in the conflict, but took no further action.
Gwyn Winfield, editor of CBRNe World, a professional journal that covers nonconventional weapons, said the images suggested to him that either a large amount of a crowd control agent like tear gas was used in a confined space or a weakened form of a more powerful chemical agent was used.
“I can say that there is a strong concern among Council members about the allegations and a general sense that there must be clarity on what happened, and that the situation has to be followed carefully,” said María Cristina Perceval of Argentina, the president of the 15-member Council, after the meeting. “All Council members agreed that any use of chemical weapons, by any side under any circumstances, is a violation of international law.”
It was not clear whether the team sent to Syria by the United Nations would be able to investigate the new reported attack.
In the opposition’s account of the deadly events, Mr. Assad’s forces deployed poison gas on a number of rebel-held suburbs east of Damascus, the capital. They described medics finding people dead in their homes.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the team was “in discussions with the Syrian government on all issues pertaining to the alleged use of chemical weapons, including this most recent reported incident.”
Videos posted online showed mostly men and children, but the opposition activists said that many women were killed too, but that out of respect they were not photographed.
Eduardo del Buey, a spokesman for Mr. Ban, would not go beyond the statement in response to questions over the team’s ability to investigate the reported attack.
The actual death toll remained unclear. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said late Wednesday that more than 130 people had been confirmed dead in attacks around Damascus, though it could not confirm the use of gas. Other opposition estimates put the death toll at more than 1,000.
The team was to begin working on Monday. Numerous allegations of chemical weapons use have surfaced during the civil war between the forces of Mr. Assad and rebels seeking his ouster, but evidence has been disputed.
“I saw many children lying on beds as if they were sleeping, but unfortunately they were dead,” said an activist reached via Skype in the suburb of Erbin, who gave his name as Abu Yassin.
The White House said Syria should provide access to the United Nations. “If the Syrian government has nothing to hide and is truly committed to an impartial and credible investigation of chemical weapons use in Syria, it will facilitate the U.N. team’s immediate and unfettered access to this site,” the White House said.
“We thought this regime would not use chemical weapons, at least these days with the presence of the U.N. inspectors,” he said. “It is reckless. The regime is saying, ‘I don’t care.’ ”
In past instances of reported chemical weapons attacks in Syria, whether by government or by rebel forces, it took weeks for the American intelligence community to gather evidence and conduct tests sufficient to offer a credible assessment.
Others said that field hospitals were overwhelmed with the number of patients and that many ran out of medication. An activist who gave only his first name, Mohammed, said the dead in one suburb, Zamalka, were laid out in front of a mosque, where a voice over loudspeakers called on residents to identify their relatives.
The Russian statement, issued by Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said, “A homemade rocket with a still unknown poisonous chemical substance, the same as one terrorists used in Khan al-Assal on March 19, struck this area early on Aug. 21 from a position held by insurgents.”
The video record posted online did not provide enough detail to draw a complete picture of what happened. Unlike the videos often uploaded by the opposition, the images on Wednesday did not show the immediate aftermath of the attacks in the communities.
Noting that local news organizations immediately blamed the Syrian government for a chemical attack, the statement said, “All of this can only suggest that once again we are dealing with a preplanned provocation.”
The videos, experts said, also did not prove the use of chemical weapons, which interfere with the nervous system and can cause defecation, vomiting, intense salivation and tremors. Only some of those symptoms were visible in some patients.
He said Russia was calling for a “professional and fair investigation” and, he said, “all of this looks like an attempt at all costs to create a pretext for demanding that the U.N. Security Council side with opponents of the regime and undermine the chances of convening the Geneva conference.”
Gwyn Winfield, editor of CBRNe World, a journal that covers unconventional weapons, said that the medics would most likely have been sickened by exposure to so many people dosed with chemical weapons — a phenomenon not seen in the videos. He said that the victims could have been killed by tear gas used in a confined space, or by a diluted form of a more powerful chemical agent. Others suggested that toxic industrial chemicals might have been used.
And in a final note aimed clearly at the United States, Mr. Lukashevich added, “We are urging all those who have the ability to influence the armed extremists to make every effort to put an end to provocations with the use of poisonous chemical weapons.”
Some witness testimony suggested that residents, used to seeking cover from government shelling and airstrikes by running into underground shelters, had made the situation worse. In one video, a young medic said that residents had hidden in their basements, where the gas collected and suffocated them.
At least one photograph posted on Facebook by an activist showed what looked like a makeshift rocket from the assault. But loyalist militias and Hezbollah have both fired many types of makeshift rockets at rebel positions and neighborhoods in this war, and could presumably be suspects for any attacks with improvised rockets on a rebel-controlled neighborhood.
“The descent of the citizens into the basements increased the number of wounded and the number of martyrs,” the medic said, before breaking into tears and adding that many from the medical corps also succumbed to the gases.
Syria’s state news service, SANA, denied that the Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons and accused news outlets reporting the allegations of being “partners in the shedding of Syrian blood and supporting terrorism.” It also said the reports sought to “divert the special committee for the investigation of chemical weapons from carrying out its mission.”
It was not clear whether the team sent to Syria by the United Nations would be able to investigate the new reported attacks. The team arrived Sunday after months of negotiations with the Syrian government and is authorized to visit only three predetermined sites.
The Syrian ambassador to Russia, Riyad Haddad, also told the Interfax news agency that the reports were false.
The White House said that Syria should provide access to the United Nations, and that those found to have used chemical weapons should be held accountable. Other countries, including Britain and France, offered similar expressions of concern.
“The Syrian forces have never used, do not use and will not use chemical weapons even if they had them,” Mr. Haddad said. “All reports on this topic are aimed at repeating the Iraqi scenario in Syria, where there were allegedly weapons of mass destruction.”
Russia wrote off the attack as a “preplanned provocation” orchestrated by the rebels and said they had launched the gas with a homemade rocket from an area they controlled.
Argentina, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council, called an urgent meeting over the reports. But it was far from clear whether any action would be taken by the council, which has been riven by discord over Syria since the conflict there began.
“All of this looks like an attempt at all costs to create a pretext for demanding that the U.N. Security Council side with opponents of the regime and undermine the chances of convening the Geneva conference,” said the statement, issued by Aleksandr Lukashevich, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. He also called for a “professional and fair investigation.”
An activist reached via Skype in Erbeen said the attack began at 2 a.m., when rockets struck surrounding areas. He and his colleagues rushed to evacuate the wounded, and they had to break down doors of homes to get them out.
At least one photograph posted on Facebook by an activist showed what looked like a makeshift rocket. But loyalist militias and Hezbollah have both fired makeshift rockets at rebel positions in this war, and could presumably be suspects for any attacks with improvised rockets on rebel-controlled neighborhoods.
“I saw many children lying on beds as if they were sleeping, but unfortunately they were dead,” said the activist, who gave his name as Abu Yassin. He added that he believed that the number of dead was in the hundreds.
The Syrian Army, in a statement read on state television, denied having used chemical weapons, calling the accusations part of a “filthy media war” in favor of the rebels. The claims “are nothing but a desperate effort to cover their defeat on the ground, and reflect the state of hysteria, confusion and collapse of these gangs and those who support them,” the statement said.
“We thought this regime would not use chemical weapons, at least these days with the presence of the U.N. inspectors,” he said. “It is reckless. The regime is saying, ‘I don’t care.'”
Louay Mekdad, a media coordinator for the military wing of the opposition Syrian National Council, said the attack showed that Mr. Assad “doesn’t care any longer about red lines since he has already exceeded too many of them while the world has showed no reaction.”
Another activist, who gave only his first name, Mohammed, said he was in Zamalka when the rockets landed. He said he was helping to evacuate the wounded when his eyes started burning, his vision went blurry and he felt dizzy. He said the dead and wounded were taken to hospitals in a number of nearby districts, making it hard for family members to find them. In Zamalka, many of the dead were laid out in front of a mosque, where someone called over the loudspeakers for residents to come and identify their relatives.
Mr. Mekdad called on the Security Council and international powers to “live up to their moral and historic responsibility” to protect civilians in Syria. “If the international community doesn’t move now, when it is going to move?” he asked.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of people were killed in the attacks. The exile opposition Syrian National Council put the number of those killed at 1,300. Verifying any death toll was difficult, given that independent news organizations have little or no direct access to most of the country.
In a statement released late Wednesday evening, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said that France had urged the Security Council to make it clear to the Syrian government that it was necessary for the United Nations chemical weapons team to have access to the site where the killings occurred.
Louay Mekdad, a media coordinator for the military wing of the opposition Syrian National Council, said the attack showed that Mr. Assad no longer feared being held accountable by world powers. “Bashar al-Assad doesn’t care any longer about red lines since he has already exceeded too many of them while the world has showed no reaction,” Mr. Mekdad said. “This means the alleged lines never existed.”
Reporting
was contributed by David M. Herszenhorn from Moscow; C.J. Chivers from the United States; Peter Baker and Thom Shanker from Washington; Alan Cowell from London; Alissa J. Rubin from Paris; Mac Bishop from New York; and Karam Shoumali from Antakya, Turkey.
He said opposition leaders had asked members of the United Nations team to visit the attack sites but they had said they were waiting for permission from the government.
He called on the United Nations Security Council and international powers to “live up to their moral and historic responsibility” to protect civilians in Syria. “If the international community doesn’t move now, when it is going to move?” he asked.
At a televised news conference, George Sabra, a leader in the coalition, accused the international community of complicity in the killings by not intervening to protect Syrians.
“American resistance is killing us,” he said at a televised news conference in Istanbul. “The silence of our friends is killing us. The betrayal of the international community is killing us. The disinterest of the Arabs and the Muslims is killing us. The hypocrisy of the world that we considered free is killing us and killing us and killing us.”
He called for increased international support for the opposition and for the rebels fighting to topple Mr. Assad.
The reported attack came nearly exactly one year after President Obama declared the use of chemical weapons a “red line” that could lead to a stronger American response. American officials said in June that they believed that Mr. Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons “on a small scale” several times in the last year, but that did not lead to a substantive change to American involvement in the conflict. Russia, which has strongly backed Mr. Assad, accused rebel fighters last month of using the weapons in Khan al-Assal.
The British foreign secretary, William Hague, said in a statement that he was “deeply concerned by reports that hundreds of people, including children, have been killed in airstrikes and a chemical weapons attack on rebel-held areas near Damascus.”
“These reports are uncorroborated and we are urgently seeking more information. But it is clear that if they are verified, it would mark a shocking escalation in the use of chemical weapons in Syria,” he said, urging the Syrian government to allow the United Nations team currently in Syria “immediate access” to the location of the claimed attacks.
A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry condemned the “murderous attacks attributed to the Syrian regime in the region of Damascus” in a statement but declined to confirm reports that those attacks involved the use of chemical weapons. The spokesman, Vincent Floreani, said that France had called for an inquiry into the allegations and that Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius would speak further on the situation later Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for the European Union’s top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, said the bloc was looking into the reports. The spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, added that the union did not have the facilities to verify the use of chemical weapons but that it had repeatedly deplored the humanitarian situation in Syria and urged a political solution. The European Union has also backed the work of the United Nations.
Reporting was contributed by David M. Herszenhorn from Moscow; C.J. Chivers from the United States; Peter Baker and Thom Shanker from Washington; Alan Cowell from London, Alissa J. Rubin from Paris, and Rick Gladstone from New York.
