Cyprus-Forum.com

[Lit]

UN investigator says suspicion is based on testimony taken from casualties of Syrian war in neighboring countries.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/UN-str ... gas-312178

GENEVA - UN human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.

The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.

"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 an interview with Swiss-Italian television.

"This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.

Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general who also served as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, gave no details as to when or where sarin may have been used.

The Geneva-based inquiry into war crimes and other human rights violations is separate from an investigation of the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria instigated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which has since stalled.

Syrian President Assad's government and the rebels accuse each another of carrying out three chemical weapon attacks, one near Aleppo and another near Damascus, both in March, and another in Homs in December.

The civil war began with anti-government protests in March 2011. The conflict has now claimed an estimated 70,000 lives and forced 1.2 million Syrian refugees to flee.

The United States has said it has "varying degrees of confidence" that sarin has been used by Syria's government on its people.

President Barack Obama last year declared that the use or deployment of chemical weapons by Assad would cross a "red line".

[Lit]

Syrian Rebels May Have Used Sarin
By REUTERS
Published: May 5, 2013

GENEVA (Reuters) — United Nations human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical workers indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said Sunday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/world ... sarin.html

[Lit]

Maybe Israel should now bomb the rebels....seems only fair.

[Maximus]

They were manufacturing poisonous gases from chemicals received through al-Qaeda and from a Turkish company called Tekkim.

They were tested on animals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-6O-gApVrU

[Lit]

Syrian rebels 'used sarin': UN
2013-05-06 11:02

Geneva - Syrian rebels have used the deadly nerve agent sarin in their fight against President Bashar Assad's regime, according to testimony from victims, UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte said.

http://www.news24.com/World/News/Syrian ... N-20130506

[CBBB]

This was on the news a week ago.

[Maximus]

If the EU and the US were genuinely not aware of this up until now, they have lost their claim to plausible deniability.

They will withdraw themselves from associating with the support and sponsor of this and lump Turkey who is hosting the 'rebels' as guests with a real hot potato. Mr Erdgan speaks from both side of his mouth and his middle eastern ambitions are going to go up in flames. Credit to Mr Davutoglu and his strategic depths of zero problems with neighbors.