Chemical weaponsReversal: UN now calls for identifying perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria

British frigate escorting freighter carrying removed Syrian chemical weapons // Source: commons.wikimedia.com

The UN Security Council on Friday has unanimously adopted a resolution calling for identifying those using chlorine and other chemical weapons in attacks in Syria. The United States and Russia are divided over the best way to end to war in Syria, but both countries were behind the 2013 initiative to dismantle and remove chemical weapons from Syria, and behind Friday’s resolution.

The Friday resolution fills a gap in attributing blame for chemical weapons attacks, allowing for the perpetrators of such attacks to be brought to justice.

The New York Times reports that the impetus for removing chemical weapons from Syria was provided by an August 2013 sarin gas attack by Syrian government forces on civilians in a Sunni neighborhood in Damascus. The attack killed more than 1,400 civilians and injured many more. Under threat of a U.S. military strike, the Assad regime agreed to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons production infrastructure, and remove tons of chemical precursors from the country.

Since the removal of sarin and other chemicals from Syria, there have been many reports of continuing use of chemicals as weapons in Syria, especially chlorine-filled barrel bombs which Assad forces drop on civilians in Sunni neighborhoods (see Colum Lynch and John Hudson, “Inside the U.N.’s New Effort to Stop Assad’s Gruesome Barrel Bombs,” Foreign Policy, 7 August 2015)

“Pointing a finger matters,” U.S. ambassador, Samantha Power, told the council after the vote. She commended Security Council members for taking “another step aimed at stopping the use of chemical weapons in Syria.”

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been authorized by the UN to investigate reports of chemical attacks in Syria. In 2013, however, when the Security Council passed the resolution authorizing the removal of chemical weapons from Syria, Russia – which, with Iran, is Assad’s main supporter – conditioned its support for the resolution on adding to it a clause which would explicitly prohibit OPCW or the UN from determining who is responsible for chemical attacks in Syria, if such attacks continue.

Friday’s resolution calls on the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon to coordinate with OPCW the development of an investigative mechanism which would allow chemical weapons inspectors to determine the source of the attacks and identify the perpetrators.

Observers note that Russia’s reversal on the issue is one more indication of Russia distancing itself from Assad, whose forces have been in retreat across Syria since January, in the face of growing pressure by anti-regime rebels and ISIS.

The resolution stipulates that the investigative body set up by Ban Ki-moon and OPCW would identify those who are “perpetrators, organizers, sponsors or otherwise involved in the use of chemicals as weapons, including chlorine or any other toxic chemical” in Syria, in cases in which OPCW fact-finding inspectors mission determine that an incident involved, or likely involved, chemical use.

Friday Security Council’s resolution came after U.S. secretary of state John Kerry and Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, on Wednesday, reached an agreement on the wording of the resolution.

The growing use of chlorine-filled barrel bombs by the Assad regime against Sunni civilians has led several Western powers to press for a change in the 2103 Security Council resolution, so responsibility for chemical attacks could be attributed to those who perpetrated them. In April, the United States sponsored an informal Security Council meeting in which victims of Assad’s chlorine barrel bomb attacks offered council members graphic, first-hand accounts of those attacks.

The Assad regime is responsible for most of the chemical attacks in Syria, but there have also been reports that ISIS forces there used projectile-delivered poison gas against Kurdish forces in both Iraq and Syria on several occasions in June (see “More evidence emerges of ISIS’s use of chemical weapons,” HSNW, 27 July 2015).

Syria admitted to being in possession of the world’s largest stockpile of chemical weapons — 1,300 metric tons – and those chemicals have been removed from Syria and destroyed. Western intelligence services have recently concluded that Assad, in violation of the 2013 agreement, has not turned over all of his sarin gas weapons, and that he intends to use them if his regime is pushed to the brink (see “‘Strong possibility’ Assad may use chemical weapons on a large scale to protect regime: U.S. intelligence,” HSNW, 6 July 2015). OPWC’s experts, too, have unofficially determined that the Assad regime still has considerable quantities of chemical weapons which the regime never declared.

Chlorine is not considered a chemical warfare agent, and it was not among the chemicals Syria was obliged to declare under the 2013 agreement. Still, the use of chlorine as a weapon is illegal.