Saturday, May 24, 2014

Chlorine Gas Use in Syria

Chlorine gas is apparently being used in Syria:

Activists said Kfar Zeita was attacked twice on Thursday, as well as the village of Al-Tamana'a in northwest Idlib province. There have been more than a dozen reported chlorine attacks in Syria since April 11.

Reportedly, a helicopter dropped a chlorine gas bomb.

Syria denies using chlorine--or any other--poison gas.

And to be fair, al Qaeda in Iraq used chlorine gas in their terror campaign while we were fighting there. But they used them in truck bombs combined with conventional explosives, if memory serves me. So Syria's denial is possible.

And it is possible that Syria is using chlorine gas precisely because the could blame it on jihadis and because chlorine is a dual-use chemical (but using it as a poison gas is still illegal) not part of the Kerry-Lavrov deal to allow Assad time to destroy the rebellion deprive Assad of chemical weapons.

The organization tasked with removing declared chemical weapons from Syria may investigate.

Meanwhile, 160,000 people (including troops and combatants) have been killed in Syria during the uprising.