War on Syria Douma Chemical Attacks

Center for International Strategic Studies, 2018

Shahab-ud-din The Syrian Civil War is arguably the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War, with over a half million killed, wounded, or missing, and half of Syria's 22 million population displaced from their homes. Syria's largest uprising has devolved into a regionalized civil war that has ravaged the country. President Bashar ul Assad's actions would have remained obscured from the world had it not been for the use of chemical weapons during this conflict. The use of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) has given the Western countries an incentive to jump into the conflict and especially the US, which already felt left out. The Syrian Government sought Russia's help in the crisis. The initial use of CWAs was reported in December 2013. Since then, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Fact Finding Missions that were sent by the UN sponsored resolutions have ascertained that the warring sections have blatantly used Chemical Weapons. The recent incident in the Syrian city of Douma has been confirmed by activists and medics in which dozens of people died when government aircraft dropped bombs filled with toxic chemicals on Douma on Saturday. The international Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has sent monitors to Douma to gather evidence. The Western countries have confirmed through their sources that they have "proof" that the Syrian government had attacked Douma with chemical weapons. France, UK and US have agreed "on the need to take action" in Syria to "deter the further use of chemical weapons". On the other side, both Russia and Syria had denied the accusations of a chemical attack. Moscow's UN envoy said that the possibility of a war between Russia and the US cannot be excluded and hence the immediate priority is to avert the danger of war. Since Saturday's attack in Douma, there had been a sustained military buildup in the eastern Mediterranean. A French frigate, British Royal Navy submarines laden with cruise missiles and the USS Donald Cook, an American destroyer equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles, have all moved into striking range. Syria today is the largest battlefield and generator of sectarianism the world has ever seen, with deep implications for the future boundaries of the Middle East and the spread of terrorism. The ongoing diplomatic conflict between Syria and the US allied with western powers will significantly increase the suffering of the Syrian masses, if the situation escalates resulting in US strike and Russian retaliation. It is a decisive moment in contemporary history which would test the peace keeping effectiveness of international organizations like UN. The trigger-happy US approach had not yielded any results in 2014 when the CWAs were used by both sides in the conflict. Without authentic and genuine confirmation by the OPCW, this type of tactics can result into backlash and further aggravating the situation. The UN must realize that quick and decisive action towards chemical disarmament is essential and it needs to further boost its mechanism for forestalling and controlling the spread of chemical threats.

Working Group on Syria, Media and Propaganda, 2018

Members of Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media • This report discredits OPCW as a source of impartial investigation and undermines it as an international institution that is fit to be entrusted with maintaining the prohibition of chemical weapons, let alone with the remit to "identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons" assigned by a resolution of the Conference of States Parties in June 2018.

Undergraduate Thesis (2015) Copyright Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY), 2015

Overlapping crisis in Syria shed a large number of casualties caused by civil war and terrorism. Since 2013, over 1 million Syrians landed in Lebanon, Jordan and several European countries as refugees as the consequence of mass violence and unstable political constellation. Statistically it took 25 % of Syrians away from their homeland in the past 3 years. Furthermore, the brutality came into force escalating the crisis through the use chlorine gas as a warfare instrument committed by the Syrian government and its supporting fractions. In addition, some allegations pointed out the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) emerged as a contemporary threat to the crisis as well as heating up the tension over the alleged use of mustard gas upon the clash. In this point of view, the use of chemical weapon in Syria has been emerged as a common norm in the situation of warfare. This undergraduate paper will examines the role of Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapon (OPCW) as implementing body of Chemical Weapon Convention (CWC) in mitigating the crisis in Syria through Non-Proliferation. Along with its campaign in Syria, the OPCW tied a solid partnership with United Nations as a definitive international body in form of OPCW-Joint Mission in Syria. The advocacy of OPCW derived from collective diplomatic provisions and executed in several technical maintenances. Awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, the OPWC has been globally recognized as the most successful organization in field of disarmament over centuries. Keywords: Chemical Weapon, Non-Proliferation, OPCW, Syrian Crisis

Syrian Revolution Commentary and Analysis, 2021

Vast numbers of responses to the conspiracy theories absolving the Assad regime of responsibility for the 2018 chemical massacre in Douma have been penned, some of which this article will list for reference. However, this article is not a repeat of this detective work; rather, the core of it is an examination of the absurdity of these assertions, precisely from the point of view of the questions of "who gains" and casus belli that these conspiracists evoke. On April 7, 2018, the Assad regime launched a chemical attack, dropping chlorine canisters, on the besieged town of Douma, the last remaining part of the opposition-held East Ghouta region which had been under a month-long massive attack by the regime, during which it had reconquered the rest of the region.

Literature Review for the Policy and Operations Evaluations Department of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs , 2017

This section addresses the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria, with a focus on the investigations and reactions from the international community. It first summarizes the events leading to the 2013 Syrian accession to the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the work of the various international missions under the auspices of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN. Investigation findings and the corresponding debates they triggered within the international community are summarized. The second part of this section contextualizes these events, with a focus on how the debate has been conducted and the broader implications for chemical disarmament and arms control.

After the deadly chemical attack in Ghouta, last August 2013, the Syrian government agreed to destroy all of its chemical weapons. Even though by April 2014, 92,5% of Syria's chemical arsenal had been destroyed and as Syria approaches the end of the chemical arms removal program, the world has witnessed a sudden resurgence of chemical strikes, with a marked hike last April. This report summarizes the latest chemical attacks and concludes that the Assad regime is using chemical terror to advance its military goals, becoming a state we can define as a non-conventional terrorist actor.

Springer eBooks, 2017

Chemical weapons are banned under customary international law, the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The CWC today has achieved near universal adherence; a small number of states, however, remain outside its realm. Syria-until 2013 one of them-was long presumed to possess chemical weapons and in 2012 effectively admitted so. The Syrian civil war always carried the risk that one side or another would use these weapons. Reports to this end began to appear in 2012. In March 2013, following separate requests by Syria and several Western States, the UN Secretary-General began to investigate these allegations. Whilst the investigation team was in Damascus, a large-scale sarin attack was launched on Ghouta, killing hundreds of people. This incident and its subsequent confirmation by the UN team set in motion a series of unprecedented events leading to the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile under strict international control, supported by financial and in-kind assistance by more than 20 countries. But this multilateral effort did not end the use of toxic chemicals in Syria, and OPCW fact-finding missions have since confirmed several cases of chlorine attacks. Also, ISIS/Daesh reportedly has used chemical weapons including chlorine and mustard gas in Syria and Iraq. The paper concludes that it will be important to identify the perpetrators of these attacks and bring them to justice in order to protect the international norm against poison gas.

2018

On April 7, 2018, insurgents and civilians in a rebel enclave in Douma, east of Damascus, Syria, were subjected to a chemical weapons attack during an offensive conducted by Assad regime and allied Russian and Iranian-linked ground forces. At least 42 individuals were reported to have been killed in the attack due to suffocation—primarily in their homes—with more than 500 additional individuals seeking medical attention.1 Local reports from the encircled enclave suggest that during the late afternoon and evening hours, Assad regime helicopters dropped two barrel bombs containing a substance with signatures consistent with that of chlorine.2 Chlorine—an industrial hazardous material (HAZMAT) chemical with many commercial uses—can also be utilized in chemical warfare as a choking agent. Upon dispersal, this chemical—in its gaseous form—is greenish-yellow in color and heavier than air, which allows it to settle in spots such as basements and other low lying areas, slowly suffocating th...

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