After a missile attack last Monday, some civilians in Ghouta, a rebel-held region east of Damascus, have reported the smell of chlorine gas. Thirteen are reported to have experienced suffocation in Douma. International rescue and health groups argue that the symptoms of patients they are treating point to gas attacks, a claim in which the Syrian government rejects. This is the second reported chlorine attack in the region of January 2018. This isn’t the first time that Syria has denied using chemical weapons against rebel strongholds. A joint effort made by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has found that Syria has been employing chlorine gas and sarin as weapons.
After the alleged sarin attack in Ghouta in 2013, an attack President Assad denies responsibility for, Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention and agreed to destroy its stockpile. In November 2017, the United States sponsored a resolution to renew the jurisdiction of a panel to investigate who was responsible for a sarin attack carried out in Syria earlier that year. However, Russia vetoed that resolution. If the resolution to renew that UN panel had passed, the panel would have been the governing body responsible for investigating these recent attacks. Last Tuesday at the United Nations, the United States condemned Syria for employing chemical weapons. As well, the US condemned Russia for being complicit with Syria’s chemical weapons program, as they had vetoed the November resolution.
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