UN INVESTIGATORS CONFIRM THAT THE FSA USED SARIN GAS ON CIVILIANS [UPDATED]

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Alexandra Valiente
          

SEE AL-JAAFARI REITERATES REQUEST FOR FULL UN INVESTIGATION INTO CHEMICAL WEAPONS


United Nations investigators say they have found testimony from victims and medical staff that shows militants have used the nerve agent sarin in Syria, which has been classified as a weapon of mass destruction in UN Resolution 687.
The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria could not find any evidence that Syrian government forces used chemical weapons against militants, commission member Carla Del Ponte said on Sunday, Reuters reported.

“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Del Ponte said in television interview.
“This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,” said Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general who also served as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The Syrian government and the foreign-sponsored militants accuse each other of using chemical weapons three times — in March once near Aleppo and second time near Damascus, and another time in Homs in December last year.
On December 17, Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja’afari said in letters to the UN Security Council and the UN secretary general that the foreign-sponsored militants could use chemical weapons against Syrians and try to shift the blame to the government.

Damascus is “genuinely worried” that Syria’s enemies could provide chemical weapons to armed groups “and then claim they had been used by the Syrian government,” Ja’afari stated.

The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

In an interview recently broadcast on Turkish television, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that if the militants take power in Syria, they could destabilize the entire Middle East region for decades.
PTV

UN notes ‘concrete suspicions’ that Syrian rebels used chemical weapons

UN human rights investigators have spoken to the victims of Syria’s civil war and gathered medical testimonies which point to the Syrian rebels having used sarin nerve gas, while any allegations of its use by the government remain unsubstantiated.

The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has concluded that no evidence of the use of sarin by Syria’s government troops has so far been uncovered, said the lead commission member Carla Del Ponte on Sunday.

In an interview to Swiss-Italian television, Del Ponte revealed that the “investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated.”

The new report now makes the long-standing accusations of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assad look weaker: “This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,” Del Ponte continued, though she has given no indication yet of where and when the nerve agent was used.

However, despite the apparent turn-around, the investigation headed by Carla Del Ponte in Geneva is still separate from the one initiated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The latter has stalled, for the time being.

March saw two alleged chemical attacks take place in Aleppo and the capital Damascus, while December of last year saw one in Homs as well, with accusations being thrown back and forth between the government and the opposition.

The US has been insinuating that all such transgressions are by the Syrian government, and has been getting more insistent on using any available pressure point s to weaken Bashar Assad, the latest being a threat by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that the country may be on the verge of openly sending weapons to the Syrian rebels.

There was also talk of a ‘red line’ being crossed if any evidence pointing to the government’s use of chemical agents was discovered. President Barack Obama has warned that this would be a “game-changer” for the Syrian president. He added to this at a recent conference in Mexico, saying “As we’ve seen evidence of further bloodshed, potential use of chemical weapons inside of Syria, what I’ve said is that we’re going to look at all options.“

Yet, the information from the UN probe that alleges that chemical weapons were in fact being used by the rebels has coincided with Israel carrying out two bombings of Syria within a space of 72 hours, with the US preferring to leave the incident without comment.

The United States has previously said it has “varying degrees of confidence” that president Assad has used chemical weapons against his population.

The Syrian uprising, which has been ongoing for two years now, has claimed over 70,000 lives and displaced upwards of 1,2 million people into neighboring countries.


RT

Fighters of Syrian Opposition Have Used Sarin, UN Commission Investigator Says

May 06, 2013

UNITED NATIONS, SANA_ Investigators of the United Nations Commission of inquiry on Syria have gathered testimonies from victims and medical staffs indicating that fighters of the Syrian opposition have used the nerve agent sarin, a commission member, Carla Del Ponte said.

” The United Nations Commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces using chemical weapons,” Reuters quoted Del Ponte as saying in a televised interview on Sunday.
She added : “Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals,”

“According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Carla Del Ponte stressed.
She said : “This was use on the part of the opposition’s fighters, not by the government authorities.”
Earlier, a rocket with chemical materials fired by terrorists on Khan al-Asal area, in Aleppo last March, causing the martyrdom of 25 people and the injury of more than one hundred.
Ghossoun/

Fighters of Syrian Opposition Have Used Sarin, UN Commission Investigator Says

May 06, 2013 

UNITED NATIONS, SANA_ Investigators of the United Nations Commission of inquiry on Syria have gathered testimonies from victims and medical staffs indicating that fighters of the Syrian opposition have used the nerve agent sarin, a commission member, Carla Del Ponte said.

” The United Nations Commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces using chemical weapons,” Reuters quoted Del Ponte as saying in a televised interview on Sunday.

She added : “Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals,”

“According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Carla Del Ponte stressed.

She said : “This was use on the part of the opposition’s fighters, not by the government authorities.”

Earlier, a rocket with chemical materials fired by terrorists on Khan al-Asal area, in Aleppo last March, causing the martyrdom of 25 people and the injury of more than one hundred.

Ghossoun/

'Do you really risk going to war ...over this?' "... In the 10 days since the Obama administration notified Congress that it suspected, with “varying degrees of confidence,” that chemical weapons had been employed in Syria, no concrete proof has emerged, and some headline-grabbing claims have been discredited or contested. Officials worldwide now admit that no allegations rise to the level of certainty.Yet political rhetoric on Syria has overtaken actual evidence in a high-stakes Washington debate that’s increasing pressure on Obama to lend more military support to the rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad....  -- British officials now say they're uncertain how the few samples they’ve analyzed were gathered, handled and preserved... -- Turkish doctors over the weekend also cast doubt on another reported chemical attack, this one in the Syrian city of Saraqib, where rebels claimed some sort of chemical weapon had been dropped ... -- Adding to the confusion over the weekend was Carla del Ponte, a member of the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry for Syria and a former war crimes prosecutor. Del Ponte told Swiss television on Sunday that “according to the testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas.”... " Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/06/190516/despite-political-clamor-over.html#storylink=cp" Former US Official: Israel Used Chemical Weapons in Syria to Implicate Assad

Local Editor

A former senior official in the Bush administration said that the Zionist entity may have used chemical weapons in Syria in a bid to implicate the President Bashar al-Assad. Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, said that the use of chemical weapons in Syria might have been a "false flag operation" of Israel, meant to implicate President Assad. "We don’t know what the chain of custody is. This could’ve been an Israeli false flag operation, it could’ve been an opposition in Syria... or it could’ve been an actual use by Bashar Assad. But we certainly don’t know with the evidence we’ve been given. And what I’m hearing from the intelligence community is that that evidence is really flakey,” Wilkerson told Cenk Uygur in an interview with Current TV. Given this "flimsy evidence," Wilkerson doesn't believe a red line has been crossed in Syria, and that the US should not base its intervention in the crisis-hit country based on such evidence. Wilkerson criticized Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu harshly, saying there is a "geostratigically, geopolitical inept regime in Tel Aviv right now." "We saw really startling evidence of that in the fact that [US] President [Barack] Obama had to tell Bibi Netanyahu, 'pick up the phone, you idiot, and call Ankara and get yourself out of this strategic isolation you're in right now, do a reconciliation with Turkey, the most powerful country in the region,' otherwise Bibi probably wouldn't have done it," he said. He also said Netanyahu was "clueless" as to the grave security situation Israel is in.

Source: Israeli Media 05-05-2013 - 14:30 Last updated 05-05-2013 - 14:30

الامم المتحدة: إتهامات للمعارضة السورية بإستخدام غاز السارين

 

‏الإثنين‏، 06‏ أيار‏، 2013

أوقات الشام

اتهمت عضو لجنة التحقيق بانتهاك حقوق الانسان في سوريا كارلا ديل بونتي "المعارضة السورية باستعمال غاز الأعصاب السارين".واشارت الى أن "المعلومات والأدلة التي جمعها اعضاء اللجنة الدولية من الاطباء المختصين ومن المتضررين تؤكد استخدام غاز السارين".ولفتت ديل بونتي في مقابلة مع تلفزيون ايطالي الى انه "انطلاقا من المؤشرات التي تم الحصول عليها فان مسلحي المعارضة استخدموا الاسلحة الكيميائية باستعمالهم غاز السارين".واستعرضت ديل بونتي محتوى التقرير الذي حضره موظفو اللجنة التي زارت الدول المجاورة لسوريا حيث "التقوا بالمتضررين والاطباء وعناصر المشافي الميدانية".ولفتت الى ان "الخبراء رغم ذلك ما زالوا بعيدين عن طرح الاستنتاج الأخير، وانه يتوجب التأكد من نتيجة تحقيقاتنا عن طريق شهادات اضافية، لكن في الوقت الحاضر استطعنا تحديد بان القوى المعارضة للنظام من استعملت غاز السارين".

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