Syria Govt Behind Sarin Gas Attack in April, U.N. Probe Says
United Nations war crimes investigators on Wednesday said they had evidence that Syrian government forces were behind the chemical attack that killed dozens of people in Khan Sheikhun in April.
In the first U.N. report to officially lay blame for the attack on Damascus, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Syria said it had gathered an "extensive body of information" showing Damascus was behind the horrific sarin gas attack in Khan Sheikhun on April 4 that killed at least 83 people.
"We have analyzed all the other interpretations" of who might have conducted the attack, commission chairman Paulo Pinheiro said at a Geneva news conference. "It is our task to verify these allegations, and we concluded ... that this attack was perpetrated by the Syrian air force."
Wednesday's report, the 14th by the commission since it was set up by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council in 2011, covers little more than four months, from March to early July. The report is based on information retrieved from satellite images, video, photos, medical records, and over 300 interviews.
"The commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Syrian forces attacked Khan Sheikhoun with a sarin bomb at approximately 6.45 a.m. on 4 April, constituting the war crimes of using chemical weapons and indiscriminate attacks in a civilian inhabited area," the report said.
Source: Agence France Presse, Associated Press
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