A report from a chemical weapons watchdog concluded that a helicopter piloted by Syria’s elite military unit “Tiger Forces” dropped a chlorine cylinder on the rebel-occupied city of Saraqib in February 2018.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that, at about 9:22 PM on February 4, 2018, during continued attacks on Saraqib, a Syrian Arab Air Force military helicopter under the control of the Tiger Forces struck eastern Saraqib by knocking at least one cylinder. drop. , ”Said the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. “The cylinder ruptured, releasing a toxic gas, chlorine, which spread over a wide area and affected 12 named individuals.”
The dozens of individuals exposed to the chemical suffered from skin irritation, chest pain and nausea, the report said.
Witnesses told the OPCW that on the day of the attack, “they heard a helicopter sound between 9:15 PM and 9:22 PM, and one or two items fell and hit the ground.” One person who had stayed at a nearby shelter “said he went to see what happened and that he started to feel nauseous as he got closer to the area towards the origin of the noise.” Video evidence obtained by the OPCW confirmed witness statements.
Despite growing evidence to the contrary, the Assad regime has flatly denied ever using chemical weapons in the conflict.
The OPCW report was based on interviews with victims and medical personnel who responded to the incident, samples from the scene examined by toxicologists, and satellite images obtained by the team identifying various ‘impact points’.
In response to investigations, Syrian authorities had alleged that White Helmet rescue workers had collaborated with jihadist groups to “stage” the incident to “forge charges against the Syrian Arab army.” The watchdog group found no evidence to support that claim.
Syria’s infamous Tiger Forces is a pro-government, Russian-backed, intelligence-led air militia “widely regarded as the most powerful and brutal of the four intelligence divisions,” according to the Middle East Institute. The unit’s founder has been accused of having hundreds of protesters murdered in the early days of the decade-long conflict in Syria.
The Monday Report is the second OPCW investigation into the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Civil War. The first confirmed the use of a sarin nerve agent and chlorine against civilians in a March 2017 attack on the city of Ltamenah that left three people dead and 32 injured, suffering from vomiting, breathing difficulties and foam in the mouth.