Reports of Syrian chlorine-gas attacks stir up U.N.

A Syrian man receives oxygen from a medic in a rebel-held village recently in this photo that activists say followed a chlorine-gas attack by Syrian government forces.
A Syrian man receives oxygen from a medic in a rebel-held village recently in this photo that activists say followed a chlorine-gas attack by Syrian government forces.

BEIRUT - Syrian government forces have attacked rebel-held areas with poisonous chlorine gas in recent weeks and months, leaving men, women and children coughing, choking and gasping for breath, according to Associated Press interviews with more than a dozen activists, medics and residents on the opposition side.

Syria flatly denied the allegations, and they have yet to be confirmed by any foreign country or international organization. But if true, they highlight the limitations of the global effort to rid President Bashar Assad’s government of its chemical weapons.

Witnesses near Damascus and in a central rebel-held village told the AP of dozens of cases of choking, fainting and other afflictions from inhaling fumes that were said to be yellowish and smelled of chlorine. Some of those interviewed said they believed the gas was responsible for at least two deaths.

They said the fumes came from hand grenades and helicopter-dropped “barrel bombs,” which are crude containers packed with explosives and shrapnel.

Activists have posted videos similar, though on a far smaller scale, to those from August’s chemical-weapons attack near Damascus that killed hundreds of people and nearly triggered U.S. airstrikes against Syria. The new footage depicts pale-faced men, women and children coughing and gasping at field hospitals.

The United Nations Security Council called for an investigation Wednesday. Council members expressed “grave concern” over the allegations, said Nigerian U.N. Ambassador U. Joy Ogwu, council president.

It’s an accusation that carries high stakes, and the Syrian opposition has an interest in pushing such claims in hopes of spurring the world to take stern action against Assad, who has been locked in a civil war for three years and faces a Sunday deadline for handing over all his chemical weapons for destruction.

Syria has shipped out 86 percent of its declared stockpile so far, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the agency overseeing the process.

Chlorine is a potentially lethal chemical with a multitude of ordinary civilian uses, including laundry bleach and swimming-pool disinfectant. In high concentrations it can asphyxiate victims.

While chlorine was first deployed on the battlefield in World War I, it is no longer officially considered a warfare agent and is not among the chemicals declared by Syria. It is not as effective at killing as sarin - the nerve agent that was purportedly used last summer - and experts said it is difficult to achieve high concentrations of chlorine by dropping it from the air.

Still, any toxic chemical is considered to be a chemical weapon if used for military purposes. Consequently, Syria’s use of chlorine-filled bombs, if confirmed, would be a violation of the chemical-weapons treaty that Assad’s government signed last year as part of a deal to hand over its stockpile.

On Wednesday, Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said his government categorically denied the use of chlorine gas. Ja’afari further disputed that chlorine gas could be categorized as a chemical weapon, saying “it is a mundane substance used for bleaching clothes in the laundry or disinfecting swimming pools.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said Monday that officials were still trying to determine what happened. On Sunday, French President Francois Hollande told the Europe 1 radio station there were “elements” suggesting recent use of chemical weapons, but no proof.

Both countries accused the Syrian government of using sarin against civilian areas in the August attack near Damascus.

Syrian opposition forces have accused the government of using small amounts of poisonous gas over the past few months in several attacks affecting more than 100 people.

The most serious episode appears to have occurred in Kfar Zeita, a rebel-held village in Hama province some 125 miles north of Damascus.

Three activists and a medic gave similar accounts of how several bombs containing a chlorine-smelling gas were dropped on the town of some 20,000 people starting on April 11, triggering severe coughing, muscle contractions and choking.

“It smelt like eggs, then after a while it became like chlorine,” Muaz Abu Mahdi, a Kfar Zeita activist who filmed a falling bomb, said in a Skype interview. He said it killed a girl and an elderly man, and he saw dozens of stricken people at a field hospital.

“They were lying on the ground of the clinic. … Most of them had fainted. Others were shaking, and they couldn’t flex their muscles. Others woke up dizzy. Others were coughing blood,” Abu Mahdi said.

Adham Raadoun, a journalist working for a Syria-based opposition news network who lives on the edge of Kfar Zeita, said the bombs were dropped on residential areas. He said they released a yellowish smoke and smelled like chlorine cleanser.

Michael Luhan, spokesman for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said the agency could not get in the country to verify the claims without a formal request from a government entity with credible information.

“So far, no state party has asked for an investigation,” he said.

AID STILL BLOCKED

The United Nations on Wednesday also focused attention on another aspect of the Syrian civil war, as the heads of five U.N. agencies said diplomacy had failed to open all Syrian cities for humanitarian aid and that the plight of civilians in many parts of the country was getting worse.

The U.N. estimates that the three-year conflict has left more than 9 million Syrians in need of assistance, including 3.5 million who are trapped where fierce fighting and quickly shifting lines of conflict have prevented access by relief agencies.

“Thus far, diplomatic efforts designed to end years of suffering have failed,” the statement said.

U.N. officials said Valerie Amos, the undersecretary-general for emergency relief and one of the signatories of the statement, would brief members of the Security Council at the end of this month on the implementation of the Feb. 22 resolution demanding that humanitarian agencies have unfettered access to civilians.

The resolution did not commit to imposing sanctions for noncompliance, but the council warned that it would take “further steps” against parties that disobeyed.

“All too often, humanitarian access to those in need is being denied by all sides,” the agency chiefs said.

The statement was signed by Amos; Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees; Anthony Lake, the executive director of United Nations Children’s Fund; Ertharin Cousin, the executive director of the World Food Program; and Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization.

Since the Security Council passed its resolution, some aid convoys have reached parts of northern Syria from Turkey and the northeastern province of Hasakah from Iraq. Agencies also managed this month to deliver aid to Aleppo for the first time since June. The aid organization chiefs said, however, that the amount of assistance that was getting through was “not nearly” enough.

Fighting around the Damascus suburb of Yarmouk has blocked deliveries of food and other aid to around 18,000 residents for more than two weeks, according to the United Nations, which has received widespread reports of “women dying in childbirth for lack of medical care, and infants, the elderly, women, the sick and the dying reduced to eating animal feed.”

ONE CANDIDATE SO FAR

In Damascus on Wednesday, a Syrian lawmaker registered his candidacy for the country’s June 3 presidential election, becoming the first contender in the vote.

Assad has suggested he would seek another term in office but has not yet announced his candidacy. According to a new election law, the balloting must be contested by more than one candidate. Analysts had said they expected at least one candidate to run against Assad to give the election a veneer of legitimacy.

Syrian opposition figures and Western leaders have blasted the decision to hold presidential elections during the civil war.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the decision to hold presidential elections was a“sovereign one” and warned that “no foreign power will be allowed to intervene” in the process.

In a statement, it said Syrians will choose their new leader through the ballot box, showcasing “the highest levels of democracy and freedom.”

Lawmaker Maher Abdul-Hafiz Hajjar, 43, of Aleppo registered his candidacy Wednesday, said parliament speaker Jihad Laham.

Meanwhile, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday that the war in Syria is an “unmitigated disaster” and the best way forward may be an interim peace deal that allows Assad to stay in power for a short period.

“Two years ago, I said we had to intervene and take tougher measures otherwise Syria would disintegrate and we’d be left with increasingly tough options,” Blair said Wednesday. “Right now, all the options are ugly and difficult in Syria, but the best option is the one that allows us to evolve with some kind of peaceful transition to a new constitution.”

Extremist groups fighting in Syria “should receive no support from any of the surrounding nations,” he said.

Blair, Middle East envoy for the quartet of the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, argued in his speech that world leaders must support governments and movements in the region that back religious freedom, pluralism and open economies. Islamist extremism needs to be countered, because it is spreading and destabilizing societies, he said.

Information for this article was contributed by Diaa Hadid, Zeina Karam, Michael C. Corder and Albert Aji of The Associated Press; by Nick Cumming Bruce of The New York Times; and by Thomas Penny and Caroline Alexander of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 8 on 04/24/2014

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