‘Chemical bombing’ kills 1,300 in Syria
23 Aug 2013 5:17 AM IST
The protracted civil war in Syria saw its bloodiest episode on Wednesday when more than 650 people were killed in fierce army bombardment with chemical weapons in Damascus suburbs, the opposition has claimed. While the Syrian National Coalition gave a toll of 1,300 dead, a Britain-based monitoring group said earlier that at least 1,000 people had been killed and the number was rising. Britain said it would refer the alleged chemical weapons attack, which could not immediately be verified and has been vehemently denied by the Damascus regime, to the United Nations.
‘This figure will surely go up. The raids and bombardment are continuing,’ said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers its information from activists and medics. It did not comment on allegations by anti-regime activists that the army had used chemical arms in its bombardment of the densely-populated Ghouta suburbs where rebels have been holding out against government forces. According to activists, hundreds of people died of gas inhalation and exposure to chemical weapons.
Syrian authorities, for their part, denied charges that the army used chemical arms. ‘Reports on the use of chemical weapons in (the suburbs of) Ghouta are totally false,’ state news agency SANA said. ‘It’s an attempt to prevent the UN commission of inquiry from carrying out its mission.’
Al-Watan newspaper said the Syrian government had ‘pledged to cooperate and facilitate the work’ of a UN team of chemical inspectors who launched a mission in the country on Tuesday. The Syrian National Coalition called for an urgent UN security council meeting.
‘I call on the security council to convene urgently,’ National Coalition leader Ahmed al-Jarba told Al-Arabiya news channel, condemning the bombardment of the suburbs as a massacre.
British foreign secretary William Hague, meanwhile, said his country will refer the opposition charges of a massive chemical weapons strike to the security council.
He was ‘deeply concerned’ by the reports and said if they were proved they would mark a ‘shocking escalation’.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists reported hundreds of casualties in the ‘brutal use of toxic gas by the criminal regime in parts of Western Ghouta’. And in videos posted on YouTube, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, another activist group, showed what it called ‘a terrible massacre committed by regime forces with toxic gas, leaving dozens of martyrs
and wounded.’
‘This figure will surely go up. The raids and bombardment are continuing,’ said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers its information from activists and medics. It did not comment on allegations by anti-regime activists that the army had used chemical arms in its bombardment of the densely-populated Ghouta suburbs where rebels have been holding out against government forces. According to activists, hundreds of people died of gas inhalation and exposure to chemical weapons.
Syrian authorities, for their part, denied charges that the army used chemical arms. ‘Reports on the use of chemical weapons in (the suburbs of) Ghouta are totally false,’ state news agency SANA said. ‘It’s an attempt to prevent the UN commission of inquiry from carrying out its mission.’
Al-Watan newspaper said the Syrian government had ‘pledged to cooperate and facilitate the work’ of a UN team of chemical inspectors who launched a mission in the country on Tuesday. The Syrian National Coalition called for an urgent UN security council meeting.
‘I call on the security council to convene urgently,’ National Coalition leader Ahmed al-Jarba told Al-Arabiya news channel, condemning the bombardment of the suburbs as a massacre.
British foreign secretary William Hague, meanwhile, said his country will refer the opposition charges of a massive chemical weapons strike to the security council.
He was ‘deeply concerned’ by the reports and said if they were proved they would mark a ‘shocking escalation’.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists reported hundreds of casualties in the ‘brutal use of toxic gas by the criminal regime in parts of Western Ghouta’. And in videos posted on YouTube, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, another activist group, showed what it called ‘a terrible massacre committed by regime forces with toxic gas, leaving dozens of martyrs
and wounded.’
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