UN: chemical experts found sarin exposure in Syria attack
A team from the international chemical weapons watchdog found exposure “to sarin or a sarin-like substance” in samples from an April 4 attack in northern Syria that killed over 90 people and now wants to visit the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, a senior U.N. official said Tuesday.
U.N. disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu told the U.N. Security Council that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons also submitted a report into the alleged use of chemical weapons near Um Hosh in the Aleppo countryside on Sept. 16, 2016 which indicated the use of “sulfur mustard.”
OPCW fact-finding teams have been investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria but aren’t mandated to determine responsibility for attacks. That has been left to a joint U.N.-OPCW investigative body known as the JIM.
Last year, the JIM concluded that the Syrian government used chlorine gas in three attacks and Islamic State extremists used mustard gas in one attack during 2014 and 2015.