A report by a chemical weapons watchdog concluded that a helicopter controlled by the elite military unit of the “Tiger Forces” in Syria dropped a chlorine cylinder in the rebel-held city of Saraqib in February 2018.
“There is good reason to believe that at approximately 21:22 on February 4, 2018, during the ongoing attacks on Saraqib, a military helicopter of the Syrian Arab Air Force under the control of the Tiger Force hit eastern Saraqib, dropping at least one cylinder. “, Said the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. “The cylinder broke and released a toxic gas, chlorine, which spread over a large area, affecting 12 named people.”
The ten individuals who were exposed to the chemical suffered from skin irritations, chest pain and nausea, the report said.
Witnesses told OPCW that on the day of the attack, “they heard a helicopter ring between 9:15 and 9:22 p.m., and that one or two objects fell and hit the ground.” A person who had stayed in a nearby shelter “told that he went to see what had happened and began to feel bad when he approached the area in the direction of the origin of the sound.” Video evidence obtained by the OPCW confirmed the witnesses’ reports.
Despite growing evidence to the contrary, the Assad regime has categorically denied ever using conflicting chemical weapons.
The OPCW report was based on interviews with victims and medical staff who responded to the incident, field samples examined by toxicologists and satellite images obtained by the team that identified several “points of impact”.
Following the investigation, the Syrian authorities claimed that the White Helmet rescue workers worked with jihadist groups to “stage” the incident to “falsify accusations against the Syrian Arab Army”. The monitoring group did not find any evidence to support this claim.
The infamous Syrian Tiger Forces is a Russian-backed, intelligence-led government air force “widely regarded as the most powerful and brutal of the four branches of intelligence,” according to the Middle East Institute. The unit’s founder has been accused of ordering the killing of hundreds of protesters in the early days of the ten-year Syrian conflict.
Monday’s report is the second OPCW investigation into the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war. The first confirmed the use of a nerve agent sarin and chlorine against civilians in a March 2017 attack on the town of Ltamenah, killing three people and injuring 32, who were suffering from vomiting, difficulty breathing and foaming at the mouth.