THE HAGUE: An investigation by the global chemical weapons watchdog established there are “reasonable grounds to believe” Syria’s air force dropped two cylinders containing chlorine gas on the city of Douma in April 2018, killing 43 people.
A report published Friday by a team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons offered the latest confirmation that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons during his country’s grinding civil war.
“The use of chemical weapons in Douma – and anywhere – is unacceptable and a breach of international law,” OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias said.
The organization said that “reasonable grounds to believe” is the standard of proof consistently adopted by international fact-finding bodies and commissions of inquiry.
Syria, which joined the OPCW in 2013 under pressure from the international community after being blamed for another deadly chemical weapon attack, does not recognize the investigation team’s authority and has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons.
Despite the latest findings, bringing perpetrators in Syria to justice remains a long way off. Syria’s ally Russia has, in the past, blocked efforts by the UN Security Council to order an International Criminal Court investigation in Syria.
“The world now knows the facts – it is up to the international community to take action, at the OPCW and beyond,” Arias, a veteran Spanish diplomat, said.
The report said there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that during a government military offensive to recapture Douma, at least one Syrian air force Mi8/17 helicopter dropped two yellow cylinders on the city.
One of the cylinders hit the roof of a three-story residential building and ruptured, “rapidly released toxic gas, chlorine, in very high concentrations, which rapidly dispersed within the building killing 43 named individuals and affecting dozens more,” according to the report.
A second cylinder burst through the roof of another building into an apartment below and only partially ruptured, “mildly affecting those who first arrived at the scene,” the report added.
Syrian authorities refused the investigation team access to the sites of the chlorine attacks. The country had its OPCW voting rights suspended in 2021 as punishment for the repeated use of toxic gas, the first such sanction imposed on a member nation.
The painstaking investigation by the organization’s team, was set up to identify perpetrators of chemical weapon attacks in Syria, built on earlier findings by an OPCW fact-finding mission that chlorine was used as a weapon in Douma.
The investigators also interviewed dozens of witnesses and studied the blood and urine of survivors as well as samples of soil and building materials, according to the watchdog agency.
The investigators also carefully assessed and rejected alternative theories for what happened, including Syria’s claim that the attack was staged and that bodies of people killed elsewhere in Syria were taken to Douma to look like victims of a gas attack.
The report found that the two cylinders carrying chlorine were modified and filled at the Dumayr air base and the helicopter or helicopters that dropped them were under control of the Syrian military’s elite Tiger Force.
The OPCW team “considered a range of possible scenarios and tested their validity against the evidence they gathered and analyzed to reach their conclusion: that the Syrian Arab Air Forces are the perpetrators of this attack,” the organization said in a statement.
The ongoing conflict that started in Syria more than a decade ago has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the country’s prewar population of 23 million.
Watchdog blames Syria’s air force for deadly chlorine attack
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Watchdog blames Syria’s air force for deadly chlorine attack
- A report published Friday by a team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons offered the latest confirmation that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons
Unclear if ‘pirates’ threatened Turkiye ship crew: Italy media
On Friday, Italy’s defense minister said marines had dropped onto a vessel off the nation’s coast after reports that that “stowaways” used knives to threaten the crew.
The ship, Galata Seaways sailing under a Turkish flag, was then escorted to Naples, where Italian investigators were questioning the crew and others aboard.
According to Friday media reports and statements from the defense ministry, the ship captain radioed for help after knife-wielding migrants, who had secretly boarded the vessel hoping to reach Europe and were discovered by the crew, tried to take some of the crew hostage.
But interviews with the crew have so far not backed up that version of events, according to Italian media on Saturday.
The captain has told investigators that he alerted the authorities after he saw two men with knives try to enter the ship’s machine section and, failing to do so, then rejoined the other stowaways, according to reports by ANSA news agency and La Repubblica daily.
“For the moment, it is not clear what the clandestine passengers wanted to do with the knives,” La Repubblica said, citing “informed sources.”
“Thus it is not clear whether there was a diversion attempt or not,” La Reppublica wrote, adding that no-one has yet been charged with piracy over the incident.
The three migrants who were found to have knives on them have been charged with arms possession, but have not been jailed, according to ANSA.
The 15 stowaways came from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Four of them — two men and two women — have been hospitalized, according to ANSA.
One of the women is pregnant, the other is weak, one of the men could have a fractured ankle, and the other is suffering from hypothermia.
“When we were discovered, we were afraid that we’d be arrested and repatriated,” ANSA quoted one of them telling investigators.
The Galata Seaways is a roll-on roll-off cargo ship designed to carry vehicles and was sailing under a Turkish flag with reportedly 22 crew members.
It set off from Topcular in Turkiye on June 7 and was headed for Sete in southern France.
Scores of people fleeing war and poverty in Asia, Middle East and Africa try to enter European Union countries each year.
Iran police kill 9-year-old, caught in crossfire, after his father stole a car
- Boy’s photo was shared on social media, with people expressing sorrow for his death
Dubai: A boy was shot and killed by police after his father stole a car in the southwestern Khuzestan province and drove off with him, Iranian authorities said.
Ruhollah Bigdeli, chief of police in Shushtar County, said — via Iran’s official police website — that officers tried to stop the “stolen vehicle by shooting at it,” but the boy was caught in the crossfire and died on the spot.
Police said they issued the man several warnings before they started shooting, adding that he had a criminal record, including car theft and drug smuggling.
The Iranian Jamaran news website identified the boy as 9-year-old Morteza Delf Zaregani. They spoke to the father who accused the police of not issuing any warning before shooting.
Morteza’s photo was shared on social media, with people expressing sorrow for his death.
In November, 9-year-old Kian Pirfalak, was killed in a shooting that his mother blamed on security forces.
Pirfalak was shot and killed while passing with his parents through a street in the southwestern city of Izeh, in Khuzestan province, filled with demonstrators, during nationwide protests following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the country’s morality police.
5 killed in explosion at rocket and explosives factory in Turkiye
- Investigation launched into cause of explosion
ANKARA, Turkiye: An explosion at a rocket and explosives factory on Saturday killed at least five workers, Turkiye’s defense ministry said.
The explosion occurred at around 8:45 a.m. at the compound of the state-owned Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation, in the outskirts of the capital, Ankara.
An investigation was launched into the cause of the explosion.
Several ambulances and fire trucks were dispatched to area.
Shop and house windows in surrounding areas were shattered by the force of the blast, NTV television reported.
Family members rushed to the compound for news of their loved ones, the station said.
Latest Sudan truce begins amid civilian skepticism
- Civilians trapped in the battlegrounds are desperate for relief from the bloodshed
KHARTOUM: A 24-hour cease-fire took effect Saturday between Sudan’s warring generals but, with fears running high it will collapse like its predecessors, US and Saudi mediators warn they may break off mediation efforts.
With the fighting now about to enter a third month, civilians trapped in the battlegrounds in greater Khartoum and the flashpoint western region of Darfur are desperate for relief from the bloodshed but deeply skeptical about the sincerity of the generals.
Multiple truces have been agreed and broken since fighting erupted on April 15, and Washington had slapped sanctions on both rival generals after the last attempt collapsed at the end of May.
The nationwide truce announced by US and Saudi mediators on Friday took effect at 6:00 a.m.
“Should the parties fail to observe the 24-hour cease-fire, facilitators will be compelled to consider adjourning” talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah which have been suspended since late last month, the mediators said.
Civilians voiced disappointment that the promised cease-fire was so limited in scope.
“A one-day truce is much less than we aspire for,” said Khartoum North resident Mahmud Bashir. “We look forward to an end to this damned war.”
Issam Mohamed Omar said he wanted an agreement that required fighters of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who had occupied his home in Khartoum to leave so that he can return there from his temporary lodgings across the Nile in Omdurman.
“For me, a truce that doesn’t kick the RSF out of the home they kicked (me) out of three weeks ago, doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said.
Sudan specialist Aly Verjee said he saw little reason why this truce should be honored any more than its predecessors.
“Unfortunately, the incentives have not changed for either party, so it’s hard to see that a truce with the same underlying assumptions, especially one of such short duration, will see a substantially different result, said Verjee, a researcher at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg.
Upwards of 1,800 people have been killed in the fighting, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
Nearly two million people have been displaced, including 476,000 who have sought refuge in neighboring countries, the United Nations says.
The Saudi and US mediators said they “share the frustration of the Sudanese people about the uneven implementation of previous cease-fires.”
The army, led by Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, said it has “agreed to the proposal,” adding in a statement it “declares its commitment to the cease-fire.”
The paramilitary RSF, commanded by Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, said: “We affirm our full commitment to the cease-fire.”
Both statements said the truce could support humanitarian efforts, while cautioning against violations by their opponents.
“If observed, the 24-hour cease-fire will provide an important opportunity... for the parties to undertake confidence-building measures which could permit resumption of the Jeddah talks,” the US-Saudi statement said.
Friday’s announcement came a day after Sudanese authorities loyal to Burhan declared UN envoy Volker Perthes “persona non grata,” accusing him of taking sides.
UN chief Antonio Guterres later expressed support for Perthes, who is currently in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for a series of talks.
Speaking through his spokesman, Guterres said “the doctrine of persona non grata is not applicable to or in respect of United Nations personnel” and is contrary to Khartoum’s obligations under the UN charter.
The fighting has sidelined Perthes’s efforts to revive Sudan’s transition to civilian rule, which was derailed by a 2021 coup by the two generals before they fell out.
It has also complicated the coordination of international efforts to deliver emergency relief to the 25 million civilians that the United Nations estimates are in need.
Alfonso Verdu Perez, outgoing head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Sudan, warned on Friday that “health care may collapse at any moment.”
“The needs are immense and much more remains to be done” in both Khartoum and Darfur, he told reporters in Geneva.
Palestinian president to visit China next week
- China has expressed readiness to facilitate Israeli-Palestinian talks
- Beijing has recently positioned itself as a mediator in the Middle East
BEIJING: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will make a state visit to China next week, Beijing said Friday, after China expressed readiness to help facilitate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Beijing has positioned itself as a mediator in the Middle East, brokering the restoration of ties in March between Iran and Saudi Arabia in a region where the United States has for decades been the main powerbroker.
“At the invitation of President Xi Jinping, president of the state of Palestine Mahmud Abbas will pay a state visit to China from June 13 to 16,” foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Friday.
“He is the first Arab head of state received by China this year, fully embodying the high level of China-Palestine good relations, which have traditionally been friendly,” ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing later.
Abbas is an “old and good friend of the Chinese people,” he added.
“China has always firmly supported the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights.”
Beijing has sought to boost its ties to the Middle East, challenging long-standing US influence there — efforts that have drawn rebukes from Washington.
Xi last December visited Saudi Arabia on an Arab outreach visit that also saw him meet with Abbas and pledge to “work for an early, just and durable solution to the Palestinian issue.”
And during a trip to Riyadh this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saudi Arabia was not being forced to choose between Washington and Beijing, striking a conciliatory tone following tensions with the long-time ally.
Blinken has also this week sought to mediate Israel-Palestinian tension, urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to undermine prospects for a Palestinian state.
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have been stalled since 2014.
In April, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts that his country was willing to aid peace negotiations, Xinhua reported.
And Qin told Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Al-Maliki that Beijing supports the resumption of talks as soon as possible, according to the state news agency.
In both calls Qin emphasised China’s push for peace talks on the basis of implementing a “two-state solution.”
“The Palestinian issue is the core of the Middle East issue. It bears on peace and stability in the Middle East and on international fairness and justice.”
