Syrian chemical weapons use backed-up by second investigation
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
7:12PM BST 11 May 2014
Two new and independent investigations have confirmed the use by theSyrian regime of chlorine gas to attack civilians in rebel-held areas, backing up the first clear evidence that was produced by The Telegraph last month.
Chlorine gas canister munitions have been photographed at the sites where tests conducted by The Telegraph demonstrated that the Assad regime had conducted gas attacks on civilians.
Daniele Raineri, a reporter for Italy's Il Foglio, visited the town of Kafr Zita on Monday and took a series of photographs of the Chinese-made munitions that contained chlorine gas and were dropped from government helicopters on April 13.
Markings on one of the casings (DANIELE RAINERI)
Meanwhile reporters from the German magazine Der Spiegel managed to reach the affected area and interviewed doctors who treated victims of the attack, as well as a survivor who described seeing the cloud of yellow gas approaching the nearby town of Al-Tamanah, and its effects. After hours in hospital Abu Abda said he was still coughing blood and could barely move.
The accounts corroborate eyewitness reports given to The Telegraph last month, as well as scientific testing of soil samples which revealed the presence of high concentrations of chlorine and ammonia.
Hundreds of people – many of them children – were wounded in a spate of at least eight attacks over two weeks last month. There have been 10 attacks in Idlib province in recent months, with unconfirmed reports of a further two last week.
At least six people fatally succumbed to the gas, including two children. Six-year-old Mahmud, and his half sister 16-year-old Maryuma died slow deaths when the gas formed hydrochloric acid in their lungs. It scourged and burned their alveoli, until their breathing organs filled with liquid, essentially drowning them.
Mr Raineri's photographs clearly show the marking of the Chinese arms manufacturer Norinco and the stamp Cl2, the scientific shorthand for chlorine. He has been asked to pass his images to the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is investigating the attacks.
The OPCW established a fact-finding team in the wake of the evidence gathered by the original Telegraph investigation. Officials on the team travelled to Damascus earlier this week but reported it was impossible to cross the front lines to make its own first-hand investigation in Kafr Zita, al Tamanah and Talmenes, the third affected town.
Mr Raineri said: "Most of the pictures were taken in a sort of tiny cemetery of barrel bombs in a farmyard just out the first line of buildings of the city. One of metallic remnants was clearly marked with the sign Cl2, another still had inside the cylinder which contained chemicals."
The soil samples analysed by The Telegraph were gathered by Dr Ahmad – a Syrian medic whose real identity cannot be revealed for his own protection – who had previously received training in sample collection by western chemical weapons experts. Several people, including children, died and hundreds were seriously wounded in the attacks.
Mr Raineri's visit on Monday to Kafr Zita, where the remnants of some chlorine bombs are stored, was the first additional examination of the site. He said he had counted scores of bomb sites.
The remains of metal canisters, which were packed inside barrel bombs dropped on the area, were stacked outside a deserted farm house. Local guides told him that unexploded bombs and other ordinance had been buried in nearby fields.
"An unknown quantity of chlorine bombs is buried in the middle of a soccer field, on the entry of the town. The soil there is freshly dug and the site could become important if an independent team is dispatched in the town to collect evidence," wrote Mr Raineri in his report. "The third site, which has just one bomb, is in a second yard, two minutes' drive away."
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a British chemical weapons expert involved in The Telegraph testing, said the photographs brought out by Mr Raineri build on the body of evidence available to the OPCW for its report.
"Our contacts in Syria took samples from these pre-made chlorine canisters that have been detonated in barrel bombs that were dropped from helicopters," Mr de Bretton-Gordon said.
"The evidence presented by The Telegraph and by Mr Raineri is the only realistic way of acquiring material from the site of those attacks."
Mr de Bretton-Gordon has proposed a private effort to supply gas masks and training in surviving chemical weapons attacks to Syrian civilians in front-line areas. The gas masks and other equipment could be sourced in Britain and distributed through humanitarian networks.