Khan al-Assal chemical attack

Khan al-Assal chemical attack
Part of the Syrian civil war
Location	Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, Syria
Date	19 March 2013
Deaths	at least 26 fatalities, and 86 injuries; 16 government soldiers and 10 civilians according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

The Khan al-Assal chemical attack was a chemical attack in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, Syria, on 19 March 2013, which resulted in at least 26 fatalities including 16 government soldiers and 10 civilians, and more than 86 injuries. Immediately after the incident the Syrian government and opposition accused each other of carrying out the attack, but neither side presented clear documentation. The Syrian government asked the United Nations to investigate the incident, but disputes over the scope of that investigation led to lengthy delays. In the interim, the Syrian government invited Russian experts to visit Khan al-Assal. Samples taken led them to conclude the attack involved the use of sarin, which matched the assessment by the United States. Russia, however, held the opposition responsible for the attack, while the US held the government responsible. UN investigators finally arrived on the ground in Syria in August (with a mandate excluding the evaluation of culpability for the chemical weapons attacks), but their arrival coincided with the much larger-scale 2013 Ghouta attacks which took place on 21 August, pushing the Khan al-Assal investigation "onto the backburner" according to a UN spokesman. The UN report, which was completed on 12 December, found "likely use of chemical weapons in Khan al-Assal".A U.N. report of 2014 found that the chemical agents used in the attack bore 'the same unique hallmarks as those used in Al-Ghouta' in August 2013 and that 'the evidence available concerning the nature, quality and quantity of the agents used on 21 August indicated that the perpetrators likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military, as well as the expertise and equipment necessary.'

Background

See also: Syria chemical weapons program

The attack took place in the context of the Syrian civil war's extended Battle of Aleppo; Khan al-Assal is a village about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) west-southwest of the center of Aleppo. At the time of the chemical attacked on 19 March, government forces held Khan al-Assal, but rebel forces had gained control of the police academy located 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) southwest of Khan al-Assal. The rebel forces had taken control of the police academy at the conclusion of a fierce eight day battle that concluded on 3 March, when the last government defenders of the police academy were killed. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), at least 120 government soldiers/policemen and 80 rebels were killed during the battle, and there were unconfirmed reports from SOHR activists and the pro-government Al-Watan newspaper that some of the police academy defenders were killed after being captured.

Incident

On the morning of 19 March there were reports on various social media networks that a rocket had hit the town of Khan al-Assal. Opposition sources reported that there were dozens of victims suffering from symptoms consistent with a chemical weapons attack. Some opposition reports said that a rocket missed the opposition-controlled area and landed in territory controlled by the regime. Hours later, Syrian State TV reported the incident. The government-owned Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), reported that "terrorists", had fired a rocket "containing chemical materials" into the Khan al-Assal area, which landed 300 meters from a Syrian army position. The report described the symptoms of patients admitted to a local hospital as consisting of "unconsciousness, pupil contraction, neurological symptoms, rapid pulse, breathing irregularity, murmurs in lungs, and general weakness, in addition to a decrease in cholinesterase efficiency in patients' plasma". The news agency displayed photographs of what it said were the victims, but there appeared to be no indication in the photographs that they had suffered a chemical attack, like burns or skin discoloration or quarantine measures. A Reuters photographer was quoted as saying that he had visited victims in Aleppo hospitals and that they had breathing problems; he also said that people had told him that the air smelled of chlorine after the attack.

Initial Claims

On the day of the attack, the Syrian government wrote an official letter to the United Nations stating that opposition forces had fired a chemical rocket, "from the Kafr Da'il area towards Khan al-Asal in Aleppo governorate, some 5 km away. The missile fell in a civilian-populated area, some 300 meters from a Syrian Arab army position", a military checkpoint situated at the entrance of Khan al-Assal. Days later, a military source "confirmed that artillery reports from the Syrian Army suggest a small rocket was fired from the vicinity of Al-Bab".

We were hearing reports from early this morning about a regime attack on Khan al-Assal, and we believe they fired a Scud with chemical agents.

— Qassim Saadeddine to Reuters on the 19 March 2013 by phone from Aleppo

On the day of the attack, an activist from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said "16 government soldiers and 10 civilians had been killed after a rocket landed on Khan al-Assal". An armed activist, claiming to be from a group called "Khan al-Assal Freemen", said “The regime tried to target the liberated police academy with what is thought to be a scud missile, but the missile did not reach its intended target, and fell on the government controlled areas, where Assad forces are positioned”.

A spokesman for the rebel Higher Military Council in Aleppo, Qassim Saadeddine, said the government had carried out a chemical attack.

Both opposition and Syrian government descriptions of the rocket attack were in agreement that it was carried out in the early morning of 19 March 2013.

Analyses

Some independent chemical weapons analysts, after studying initial intelligence reports and video coverage of survivors on state-run television, did not believe that the regime or rebels had used advanced chemical weapons. Lack of burns, skin discoloration or quarantine measures have been noted. Some analysts, however, suspected that victims may have been deliberately exposed to a "caustic" agent such as chlorine. A Syrian military source speaking to Channel Four News, also believed that the chemical agent in the Khan al-Assal attack was CL17, a chlorine compound dissolved in saline solution. This would not technically be a use of a chemical weapon as laid down in the Chemical Weapons Convention.

One analyst (Bretton-Gordon) cautioned that conventional high explosives can also produce an odor which might be mistaken for chlorine, and that there was no indication from the images he had seen that the chemical agent had been used. While Jean Pascal Zanders, a chemical weapons expert and a senior research fellow for the EU Institute for Security Studies, cast doubt on the use of chlorine, saying that one small rocket couldn't deliver the quantity needed to kill 25 people.

On 9 Jul, Vitaly Churkin, Russian UN ambassador, said Russian experts analyzed samples of material they collected from the site of the attack, at a Russian laboratory certified by the OPCW. The report that Russia submitted to UN concluded that sarin had been used in the chemical attack, and that the rebels were responsible for making the sarin and launching the attack. The report was not made public. A short summary of the report that was posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website provided the following evidence in support of the claim that the attack was carried out by the opposition:

1. The projectile used in the incident "does not belong to the standard ammunition of the Syrian army" and its bursting charge was RDX, which is "not used in standard chemical munitions". It's type and parameters are similar to Basha'ir-3 rocket-propelled unguided missiles, manufactured by the Bashair al-Nasr brigade.
2. Soil and projectile samples were found to contain Sarin and diisopropyl fluorophosphate, which was "used by Western states for producing chemical weapons during World War II." The sarin had been produced in "cottage industry" conditions without the use of chemical stabilisers that would permit longer-term storage.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the US officials had "studied the Russian report but ... found no reason to change our assessment" that the Syrian government was responsible for the attack. British Ambassador to the UN Mark Lyall Grant said that while it was "nice" that Syria allowed Russian investigators access to Khan al-Assal, it was "considerably more important that they give access to independent and credible U.N. investigators who are not directly involved in the conflict and who can be expected to produce a more impartial and credible report."

Some independent chemical weapons experts were critical of some of the conclusions of the Russian report. Richard Guthrie, formerly project leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project of the SIPRI, said that:

1. The use of a non-standard munition and the lower grade RDX used in the rocket would be likely if the Syrian "government was developing a semi-improvised short range rocket" and "if there happened to be a stock available".
2. The non-military grade makeup of the sarin might reflect only that "there are a lot of different ways to make sarin" or "be the result of an old sarin stock being used", and that degradation could explain the dirty mix described in the Russian report.

UN Investigations

The Syrian government asked the United Nations to investigate and reported that blood and soil samples had been collected and had been sent to the UN already. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon appointed Åke Sellström on 27 March 2013 to head a fact-finding mission to investigate the incident. However, disputes over the scope of the investigation (as the UN and others wanted to investigate other alleged incidents in Homs, Damascus and elsewhere, amidst increasing reports of chemical weapons use in Syria) led to lengthy delays as the Syrian government refused access to areas other than Khan al-Assal. There were also disputes over access to Syrian military sites, and over the exclusion of investigators from the permanent members of the UN Security Council, to which Russia objected. Russia and the United States accused each other of delaying the investigation. As a result of the delays the Syrian government asked Russia to conduct an investigation.

In June 2013, prior to UN investigators arriving in Syria, the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic said that there was reason to believe that "limited quantities of toxic chemicals" had been used in the Khan al-Assal attack, but that it was not then in a position "to determine the precise chemical agents used, their delivery systems or the perpetrator". In June the US wrote to the UN that it had concluded that sarin had been used by the Syrian government in the Khan al-Assal attack, and again in Aleppo on 13 April. In July Russian sent a report to UN in which it concluded that sarin had been used by the opposition in the Khan al-Assal attack.

UN investigators finally arrived on the ground in Syria on 18 August, after the Syrian government agreed to allow access to two other unspecified sites besides Khan al-Assal, but with a mandate limited to determining whether chemical weapons had been used and if so which ones, but not who had used them. The Syrian Ambassador to the UN said that the fact that the mandate ruled out evaluating culpability for the attacks was down to the UN and Western delegations. Opposition spokesman al-Mikdad said they hope that this delegation will be able to reach all areas where unconventional weapons have been used, However, expressed doubt that Syria government which "has done everything from changing signs with the names of areas to fabricating evidence with past delegations will do the same with this one. Therefore, we doubt they will be able to uncover truthful results." The inspectors' arrival coincided with the much larger-scale 2013 Ghouta attacks which took place on 21 August, pushing the Khan al-Assal investigation "onto the backburner" according to a UN spokesman.

On 12 December the UN published the findings of their investigation. They concluded that the “United Nations Mission collected credible information that corroborates the allegations that chemical weapons were used in Khan Al Asal”. The UN Mission was unable to conduct an on-site visit to Khan al-Assal and relied on testimony from survivors, medical staff, and the results of the analysis of environmental samples, obtained by Russia in March. The team could not confirm, however, the chain of custody of these samples. They collected conflicting witness testimony concerning the delivery mechanism for the sarin attack. Some testimony supported the position that a rocket was fired into the town, while other witnesses claimed an overflying aircraft had dropped an aerial bomb filled with sarin.