HRW: ‘Strong’ evidence Assad forces used chemical weapons
BAATHIST BARBARITY: Emergency services personnel try to pull a woman out from under the rubble of a building following a barrel bomb attack by government forces in the liberated Bustan Al-Qasr district in Aleppo. (AFP)
Agencies
Published — Wednesday 15 April 2015
Last update 14 April 2015 10:18 pm
BEIRUT: Eyewitness accounts and evidence collected from northwestern Syria “strongly” suggest regime forces dropped toxic chemicals on civilians several times last month, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
A high-ranking Syrian security official denied the claim, saying the accusations were “lies the insurgents say when they incur losses.”
Human Rights Watch said the chemicals appeared to have been packed into crude explosives-filled barrels that were dropped by military helicopter on rebel-held areas during heavy fighting for the city of Idlib.
“Evidence strongly suggests that Syrian government forces used toxic chemicals in several barrel bomb attacks in Idlib governorate between March 16 and 31, 2015,” the New York-based group said.
It called on the UN Security Council to investigate what would be a breach of both its own resolutions and Damascus’s obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention.
HRW said it had investigated six reported attacks in Idlib and villages outside, collecting evidence from rescue workers and other civilians that provided a compelling case in three of them.
The most conclusive evidence came from a March 16 attack on the village of Sarmin, which left a family of six, including three children, dead, and an attack on Idlib city on March 31.
“The children were foaming at the mouth, they were suffocating, then their hearts stopped,” said Leith Fares, a rescue worker in Sarmin.
Meanwhile, Palestinian officials and a resident said militants from the Islamic State group have lost ground to Palestinian fighters in Syria’s Yarmuk camp. IS militants have retreated from much of the territory they seized in the camp in southern Damascus after entering it on April 1, a resident using the pseudonym Samer said. “We haven’t even seen any Daesh members in over three days,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
The withdrawal was confirmed by an official from a pro-Syrian regime Palestinian faction fighting against IS inside the camp.
The Pentagon said the IS men have lost control of up to 16,800 sq. km in Iraq but have gained a bit of ground in Syria since last August,.
Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said the front lines of the territory held by the Islamic State group have been pushed farther south and west in Iraq. But the militants still control a wide swath of land stretching from west and south of Sinjar down through Mosul and across Bayji, including the oil refinery there, which is still contested.
A new map released by the Pentagon shows that US and coalition forces regained key territory near Tikrit, Sinjar Mountain and Mosul Dam.
US administration officials have said that coalition airstrikes and the ground campaign being waged by Iraqi forces have led to the gains, particularly lately around Tikrit. But Warren said it is too early to say whether the tide of battle has turned.
The airstrikes have not had the same success in Syria, where the Islamic State militants have largely held onto a broad area across the north and east. Warren said that although Islamic State militants were driven out of Kobani, in northern Syria, they have maintained their influence across the country and gained some ground around Homs and Damascus.
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