Syria chemical 'attack': Russia faces fury at UN Security Council

 Russia has been sharply criticised by other world powers at the UN Security Council in New York over the chemical weapons deaths in northern Syria.Russia has been sharply criticised by other world powers at the UN Security Council in New York over the chemical weapons deaths in northern Syria. 

Moscow's suggestions that civilians were poisoned by rebel weapons on the ground have been widely rejected.

The UK's foreign secretary, a rebel commander and a weapons expert all said evidence pointed to an attack by the Syrian government, Russia's ally.

The issue is also overshadowing an aid conference on Syria in Brussels.

Seventy donor nations are discussing aid efforts in the war-ravaged country. The UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien, said details of new pledges would be released later on Wednesday.

According to UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 20 children and 52 adults were killed in the chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib province, on Tuesday.

Opening the Security Council meeting, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Kim Won-soo said that, if confirmed, this would be biggest chemical weapons attack in Syria since Ghouta in August 2013, when hundreds of people were killed in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus.

What happened?

Footage from Khan Sheikhoun following the incident on Tuesday showed civilians, many of them children, choking and foaming at the mouth. 

A child looks up at the camera as she is treated by a medic. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported dozens of people suffered respiratory problems and symptoms including vomiting and foaming at the mouth after the attack, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib

A Civil Defence volunteer uses an oxygen mask to help him breathe. A Syrian military source has denied the government used chemical weapons.

Men are treated by rescue workers. The attack reportedly took place at about 06:30 local time (03:30 GMT).

A man carries the body of a dead child. The British-based Observatory says at least 20 children were killed.

Men stand over the bodies of people who have died. Russia's defence ministry has insisted it did not carry out any air strikes in the vicinity of the town, in Syria's north-west.

Medics treat a man after the attack. Mohammed Rasoul, the head of a charity ambulance service in Idlib, told the BBC that his medics had found people, many of them children, choking in the street.

A man cries surrounded by bodies. Photographers who rushed to the hospitals where people were being treated described a smell that they could not quite place.

Some of the victims were treated across the border in Turkey. One woman in hospital said: "We were affected by the gas. We couldn't stand up. I felt dizzy and sick. I suffer from shortness of breath. I couldn't breathe."

The World Health Organization said some of the victims had symptoms consistent with exposure to nerve agents.

A team from medical charity MSF treating victims in Idlib found patients' symptoms were "consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as sarin gas", the charity said in a statement.

Sonia Khush, Syria director of the charity Save the Children, said victims had travelled far and wide to get treatment, making it difficult to estimate how many had been affected.

What do the Russians say?

The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad denies its forces launched a chemical weapons attack.

Russia has acknowledged that Syrian planes did attack Khan Sheikhoun but it says the aircraft struck a depot producing chemical weapons, for use by militants in Iraq.

"Yesterday [Tuesday], from 11:30am to 12:30pm local time, Syrian aviation made a strike on a large terrorist ammunition depot and a concentration of military hardware in the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun town," Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konoshenkov said.

"On the territory of the depot there were workshops which produced chemical warfare munitions."

What did they say at the UN?

Matthew Rycroft, the UK's ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council that Mr Assad had "humiliated" Russia by "making a mockery" of the peace process it had brokered with some rebel groups.

"What is your plan?" he asked. "What is your plan to stop these horrific senseless attacks? We had a plan and we had the support and you rejected it to protect Assad."

Russia and China have blocked attempts to impose sanctions on Syria   

Matthew Rycroft suggested Russia had been "humiliated" by its ally Syria

Vladimir Safronkov accused Syrian rebels of fabricating evidence

 

 Russia's deputy ambassador to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, hit back by accusing the UK of being "obsessed" with overthrowing President Assad instead of seeking peace.

He said his country - which can veto any UN Security Council resolution - saw no need for a new resolution and called for a "full, objective" international investigation. Much of the video evidence of the attack had, he argued, been "staged".

The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said Syrian chemical attacks would continue if nothing was done.

"Time and time again Russia uses the same false narrative to deflect attention from their ally in Damascus," she said.

Hinting at possible unilateral action by the US, she added: "When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action."

French UN envoy Francois Delattre blamed the Assad government for the attack, accusing it of "destructive madness".

He said the world needed an "America that is seriously committed to a solution in Syria". 

What do others say to the Russian version? 

Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, told Reuters news agency: "Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas."
Local journalists say there are no military positions in the town itself but an array of broadly aligned rebel groups controlling the area surrounding it.
Critics of the Russian statement say reports of the release of gas came hours before the times stated by Mr Konoshenkov.

A chemical weapons expert, Col Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, told the BBC that the Russian version of events was "pretty fanciful".

The idea that a nerve gas like Sarin could spread after a weapons manufacturing process had been bombed was "unsustainable", he added.

US President Donald Trump called the deaths a "terrible affront to humanity".

Witnesses said clinics treating the wounded were subject to air strikes

Has Assad used chemical weapons before?

The Syrian government was accused by Western powers of firing rockets filled with Sarin at Ghouta.

President Assad denied the charge, blaming rebel fighters, but he did subsequently agree to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal.

Despite that, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has continued to document the use of toxic chemicals in attacks in Syria.

How bloody is Syria's civil war?

More than 250,000 people have been killed and, after more than six years, no political solution to the fighting is in sight.

Nearly five million Syrians have fled the country and more than six million are internally displaced, the UN says.

"This is the most complex and the most violent conflict in our times," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said at the conference in Brussels. 

Why is there war in Syria? 

 

 

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Why is there a war in Syria?

What began as a peaceful uprising against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad six years ago became a full-scale civil war that has left more than 300,000 people dead, devastated the country and drawn in global powers. 

How did the war begin? 

Long before the conflict began, many Syrians complained about high unemployment, widespread corruption, a lack of political freedom and state repression under President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father, Hafez, in 2000.

In March 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations inspired by the Arab Spring erupted in the southern city of Deraa. The government's use of deadly force to crush the dissent soon triggered nationwide protests demanding the president's resignation. 

Protests in the southern city of Deraa in March 2011 were suppressed by security forces

As the unrest spread, the crackdown intensified. Opposition supporters began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas. Mr Assad vowed to crush "foreign-backed terrorism" and restore state control. 

The city of Homs, dubbed "the capital of the revolution" suffered widespread destruction

The violence rapidly escalated and the country descended into civil war as hundreds of rebel brigades were formed to battle government forces for control of the country. 

Why has the war lasted so long?

Government forces have lost control of large swathes of the country to various armed groups

 In essence, it has become more than just a battle between those for or against Mr Assad.

A key factor has been the intervention of regional and world powers, including Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Their military, financial and political support for the government and opposition has contributed directly to the intensification and continuation of the fighting, and turned Syria into a proxy battleground.

External powers have also been accused of fostering sectarianism in what was a broadly secular state, pitching the country's Sunni majority against the president's Shia Alawite sect. Such divisions have encouraged both sides to commit atrocities that have not only caused loss of life but also torn apart communities, hardened positions and dimmed hopes for a political settlement. 

The northern Syrian city of Raqqa is the headquarters of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS)

 

Jihadist groups have also seized on the divisions, and their rise has added a further dimension to the war. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance formed by what was once the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, controls large parts of the north-western province of Idlib.
Meanwhile, so-called Islamic State (IS), which controls large swathes of northern and eastern Syria, is battling government forces, rebel brigades and Kurdish militias, as well as facing air strikes by Russia and a US-led multinational coalition.

Thousands of Iranian-backed Shia militiamen are supporting Syrian government forces

 Thousands of Shia militiamen from Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen say they are fighting alongside the Syrian army to protect holy sites.

Why are so many outside powers involved?

Russia's air campaign aimed to "stabilise" the government of President Bashar al-Assad

Russia, for whom President Assad's survival is critical to maintaining its interests in Syria, launched an air campaign in September 2015 with the aim of "stabilising" the government after a series of defeats. Moscow stressed that it would target only "terrorists", but activists said its strikes mainly hit Western-backed rebel groups.
Six months later, having turned the tide of the war in his ally's favour, President Vladimir Putin ordered the "main part" of Russia's forces to withdraw, saying their mission had "on the whole" been accomplished. However, intense Russian air and missile strikes went on to play a major role in the government's siege of rebel-held eastern Aleppo, which fell in December 2016.

Rebels have received only limited military assistance from Western powers

Shia power Iran is believed to be spending billions of dollars a year to bolster the Alawite-dominated government, providing military advisers and subsidised weapons, as well as lines of credit and oil transfers. It is also widely reported to have deployed hundreds of combat troops in Syria.
Mr Assad is Iran's closest Arab ally and Syria is the main transit point for Iranian weapons shipments to the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support government forces.

A US-led coalition has been conducting air strikes on Islamic State militants in Syria since 2014

The US, which says President Assad is responsible for widespread atrocities, has provided only limited military assistance to "moderate" rebel groups, fearful that advanced weapons might end up in the hands of jihadists. Since September 2014, the US has conducted air strikes on IS in Syria, but says it has not intentionally attacked government forces.
Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, which is seeking to counter the influence of its rival Iran, has been a major provider of military and financial assistance to the rebels, including those with Islamist ideologies.

Turkish troops are backing a Syrian rebel offensive to take control of a northern border area

Turkey is another staunch supporter of the rebels. However, it has sought to contain the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia whose fighters are battling IS as part of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance. Ankara accuses the YPG of being an extension of the banned Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
In August 2016, Turkish troops backed a rebel offensive to drive IS militants out of one of the last remaining stretches of the Syrian side of the border not controlled by the Kurds. Since then, they have taken control of some 2,000 sq km (772 sq miles) of territory, according to the Turkish military, and forced the US to deploy troops to the SDF-controlled town of Manbij to prevent clashes.

What impact has the war had?

There are no reliably accurate statistics on the number of people killed or wounded in the fighting

 

The UN says at least 250,000 people have been killed in the past five years. However, the organisation stopped updating its figures in August 2015. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, puts the death toll at more than 321,000, while a think-tank estimated in February 2016 that the conflict had caused 470,000 deaths, either directly or indirectly.
Five million people - most of them women and children - have fled Syria, according to the UN. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history.

About 10% of Syrian refugees have sought safety in Europe, sowing political divisions as countries argue over sharing the burden. A further 6.3 million people are internally displaced inside Syria.
The UN estimates it will need $3.4bn (£2.7bn) to help the 13.5 million people who will require some form of humanitarian assistance inside Syria in 2017.
Almost 85% of Syrians live in poverty, with more than two-thirds of the population in either extreme or abject poverty. More than 12.8 million people in Syria require health assistance and more than seven million are food insecure amid rising prices and food shortages. Households spend up to a quarter of their income just on water. Some 1.75 million children are out of school.

Almost half of Syria's pre-war population of 23 million has been displaced by the war

 The warring parties have compounded the problems by refusing humanitarian agencies access to many of those in need. Some 4.9 million people live in besieged or hard-to-reach areas.

What's being done to end the conflict? 

Previous attempts by the UN to broker a political settlement have failed

With neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other, the international community long ago concluded that only a political solution could end the conflict. The UN Security Council has called for the implementation of the 2012 Geneva Communique, which envisages a transitional governing body with full executive powers "formed on the basis of mutual consent".
Peace talks in early 2014, known as Geneva II, broke down after only two rounds, with the UN blaming the Syrian government's refusal to discuss opposition demands.
A year later, the conflict with IS lent fresh impetus to the search for a political solution in Syria. The US and Russia persuaded representatives of the warring parties to attend "proximity talks" in Geneva in January 2016 to discuss a Security Council-endorsed road map for peace, including a ceasefire and a transitional period ending with elections.

A local truce in the Homs suburb of al-Wair in December 2015 allowed rebels to be evacuated

The first round broke down while still in the "preparatory" phase, as government forces launched an offensive around Aleppo. The talks resumed in March 2016, after the US and Russia brokered a nationwide "cessation of hostilities" that excluded jihadist groups. But they collapsed the following month.
Turkey and Russia brokered another truce after the fall of Aleppo. In January 2017, they and Kazakhstan hosted the first face-to-face meeting between rebel fighters and government officials since the war began. That was followed by a fresh round of UN-mediated talks in Geneva, which UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said "achieved much more than many people had imagined we could have".

What is left of rebel territory?  

Several opposition-held districts and suburbs of Damascus are under siege

The fall of Aleppo means the government now controls Syria's four biggest cities. But large parts of the country are still held by other armed groups.
Rebel fighters and allied jihadists are estimated to control about 15% of Syrian territory, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
US officials said in early December 2016 that there were 50,000 or more "moderate" rebels, concentrated in the north-western province of Idlib and the western Aleppo countryside.

Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists are a key part of the rebel alliance controlling Idlib province

Rebels also control smaller areas in the central province of Homs, the southern provinces of Deraa and Quneitra, and the eastern Ghouta agricultural belt outside Damascus.
Kurdish forces, who say they support neither the government nor the opposition, meanwhile control much of Syria's border with Turkey, as well as a large part of the country's north-east.
And although they have suffered extensive losses in the past two years, IS militants still hold large parts of central and northern Syria, including the city of Raqqa.

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Chemical attack' in Idlib kills 58

 At least 58 people have been killed and dozens wounded in a suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held town in north-western Syria, a monitoring group says.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that strikes on Khan Sheikhoun by Syrian government or Russian jets had caused many people to choke.

Later, there were unconfirmed reports that aircraft had fired rockets at local clinics treating survivors.

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons.

If confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest chemical attacks in Syria since the civil war began six years ago 

Mohammed Rasoul, who is in charge of a charity ambulance service in Idlib, told BBC Arabic that he received news of the air strikes at about 06:45 (03:45 GMT).

When three of his ambulances arrived at the scene about 20 minutes later, medics found people choking in the street, he said.

"Our team is still there, moving patients from one place to another because of overcrowded hospitals."

"I am speaking to my team and they are doing fine, but the situation over there is very bad and most of those who are suffering are children," he added. 

Rescue workers said many children were among those killed or injured in the attack

The Syrian Observatory could not confirm the nature of the substance that was dropped

Mr Rasoul reported that 67 people had died and that 300 were injured, while the pro-opposition Step news agency put the death toll at 100.

The Syrian Observatory cited medical sources in Khan Sheikhoun as reporting that 11 children were among the dead, and that the symptoms among those affected included fainting, vomiting and foaming at the mouth.

The pro-opposition Edlib Media Centre (EMC) posted a large number of photographs of people receiving treatment, as well as images showing what appeared to be the bodies of at least seven children in the back of a pick-up truck. It was not immediately possible to verify the images' authenticity.

The Syrian Observatory said it was unable to confirm the nature of the substance that was dropped, but the EMC said it was thought to be the nerve agent sarin. 

The Syrian opposition demanded the UN Security Council open an investigation immediately

Idlib province, where the air strikes took place, is largely controlled by an alliance of rebel factions and the al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The region is regularly targeted in air strikes by the government and its ally Russia, as well as the US-led multinational coalition against so-called Islamic State.

The main Syrian opposition alliance, the National Coalition, accused President Bashar al-Assad's government of being behind the attack on Khan Sheikhoun and called on the UN Security Council to order an immediate investigation.

"Failure to do so will be understood as a message of blessing to the regime for its actions," it warned in a statement. 

Rescue workers from the Syria Civil Defence, known as the White Helmets, were also overcome

In August 2013, the government was accused by Western powers of firing rockets filled with sarin at several rebel-held suburbs of the capital Damascus, killing more than 300 people. Mr Assad denied the charge, but did agree to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal.
Despite this, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has continued to document the use of toxic chemicals in attacks in Syria.
A joint investigation with the UN concluded last October that government forces had used chlorine as a weapon at least three times between 2014 and 2015. It also found IS militants had used the blister agent sulphur mustard.
Human Rights Watch also accused government helicopters of dropping bombs containing chlorine on rebel-held areas of Aleppo on at least eight occasions between 17 November and 13 December, during the final stages of the battle for the city. The attacks killed at least nine civilians.

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