Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/NEW YORK: Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe the Syrian Arab Air Force was responsible chemical weapons attack on Douma early five years ago.
Its investigation and identification team, which is responsible for identifying the perpetrators of such chemical attacks in Syria, concluded that on the evening of April 7, 2018, one helicopter belonging to the elite Syrian “Tiger Forces” unit dropped two yellow cylinders filled with dangerous chlorine gas onto two residential buildings in the city.
Syrian Regime Guilty of Chemical Attack
Fernando Arias, the OPCW’s director-general, said, “the world now knows the facts; it is up to the international community to take action at the OPCW and beyond.”
The Douma chemical attack resulted in the confirmed deaths of 43 identified civilians. Some estimates put a confirmed death toll at 50. At least a hundred people were wounded.
The IIT said it reached its conclusion based on “reasonable grounds,” the standard of proof consistently adopted by international fact-finding bodies and commissions of inquiry.
The IIT report said that the team’s third investigators, analysts, and several external independent experts scrutinized the attack’s physical evidence, including environmental and biomedical samples, witness statements, and other verified data, such as forensic analyses and satellite images.
