PARIS — France said Tuesday it has confirmed that the nerve gas sarin was used “multiple times and in a localized way” in Syria, including at least once by the regime. It was the most specific claim by any Western power about chemical weapons attacks in the 27-month-old conflict.
Britain later said that tests it conducted on samples taken from Syria also were positive for sarin.
The back-to-back announcements left many questions unanswered, highlighting the difficulties of confirming from a distance whether combatants in Syria have crossed the “red line” set by President Barack Obama. The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has refused to allow U.N. investigators into the country.
The French and British findings, based on samples taken from Syria, came hours after a U.N. team said it had “reasonable grounds” to suspect small-scale use of toxic chemicals in at least four attacks in March and April.
The U.N. probe was conducted from outside Syria’s borders, based on interviews with doctors and witnesses of purported attacks and a review of amateur videos from Syria.
“Syria is in free fall,” Paulo Pinheiro, the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry investigating the hostilities in Syria, told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. “Crimes that shock the conscience have become a daily reality. Humanity has been the casualty of this war.”
The U.N. panel said “there are reasonable grounds to believe limited quantities of toxic chemicals were used” in Aleppo and Damascus on March 19, in Aleppo again on April 13 and in Idlib on April 29. They based their assertion on interviews with victims of attacks, refugees from Syria and some medical personnel, Pinheiro told reporters Monday, but he refused to give further details.
The panel also reported for the first time the use by government forces of thermobaric bombs, which scatter a cloud of explosive particles before detonating, sending a devastating blast of pressure and extreme heat that incinerates those caught in the blast and sucks the oxygen from the lungs of people in the vicinity.
Both sides had adopted siege tactics, trapping civilians in their homes and cutting off supplies of food, water, medicines and electricity, the report stated, in clear breach of international law. The panel also reported instances in which forces of both sides have used attacks or the threat of them to drive civilians out of particular areas, which is also a war crime.
The team said solid evidence will remain elusive until inspectors can collect samples from victims directly or from the sites of alleged attacks.
In the West, meanwhile, the lack of certainty about such allegations is linked to a high stakes political debate about whether the U.S. should get more involved in the Syria conflict, including by arming those fighting Assad.
Obama has been reluctant to send weapons to the Syrian rebels, in part because of the presence of Islamic militants among them. Obama has warned that the use of chemical weapons or their transfer to a terrorist group would cross a “red line,” hinting at forceful intervention in such an event.
Yet he has insisted on a high level of proof, including a “chain of custody,” that can only come from on-site investigations currently being blocked by the regime.
Russia, meanwhile, has rejected intelligence the U.S. provided last month suggesting the Assad regime used chemical weapons on its own people, American officials said.
