88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
The Russian government’s insistence that chemical weapons were used by rebel forces now places it on the fringes of a serious debate.
Syria’s Chemical Weapons: The Russia Factor
September 26, 2013
Author(s):
Carroll Bogert
Published in:
Vedomosti (in Russian)
Russian diplomacy has dramatically changed the trajectory of Western response to the Syria crisis and put the Kremlin at the center of international negotiations to control Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. But the Russian government’s insistence that chemical weapons were used by rebel forces now places it on the fringes of a serious debate over what to do next to end the atrocities in that embattled country.
In his op-ed for the New York Times, President Putin made the case for pursuing diplomacy over military strikes in Syria. He also wrote that there is “every reason to believe” the attack was carried out by opposition forces to provoke a Western military intervention.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has continued to claim that the “obscure case of the August 21” attack was “clearly fabricated.” Last week in Damascus, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov announced that Russia would be analyzing new “evidence” from the Syrian government that exonerates their forces for the attack.
Syrian opposition forces are indeed responsible for serious crimes in their conduct of war, including attacks against civilians, summary executions, kidnappings, torture, and other abuses. They include extremist Islamist elements that should be of real concern. But they are not responsible for the August 21 chemical weapons attack, and a review of the evidence demonstrates that.
The United Nations inspection team remains the only independent group to have accessed the site of the attacks. When US military strikes against Syria appeared imminent, Russian diplomats urged the world to wait for the UN inspectors’ report. But now that the report points clearly to Syrian government responsibility for the attack, the same officials are dismissing it as “politicized,” ”biased,” and “one-sided.”
UN inspectors were able to visit sites and interview victims and eyewitnesses, but it was not within their mandate to state explicitly who they thought was responsible. But they have provided substantial evidence of Syrian government responsibility, and that evidence is backed up by a 21-page research report by Human Rights Watch, an independent, nongovernmental organization.
We analyzed witness accounts of the rocket attacks, information on the likely source of the attacks, the physical remnants of the weapon systems used, and the medical symptoms exhibited by the victims as documented by medical staff. Using this information, Human Rights Watch’s expert arms team, specialized in the identification of weapons and munitions used in conflicts around the world, made detailed reconstructions of the weapons used, and consulted internationally respected experts to analyze the symptoms shown by those sickened in the attack.
Human Rights Watch is headquartered in New York, but a visit to our website at www.hrw.org will easily show that we are often vehement critics of US foreign policy and have more than a 30-year track record of documenting and criticizing US government violations of human rights at home. Contrary to some Russian media reports, we have not taken a position favoring US military strikes in Syria. But we have published dozens of reports, briefing papers, and extended press releases in the two and a half years since the Arab Uprisings spread to Syria, beginning as a protest movement against the authoritarian government and now morphing into a devastating civil war. We have reported on violations of international humanitarian law by both sides
Everyone agrees that the August 21 attacks took place at two sites 16 kilometers apart. They were caused by surface-to-surface rockets, not on-the-ground explosions.
The UN inspectors, as well as Human Rights Watch, identified two systems that launched the rockets carrying Sarin into Ghouta. Both systems are known to be in the arsenal of the Syrian armed forces. One system launches 330mm rockets-most likely Syrian produced- from truck-mounted launchers, each rocket carrying canisters of 50 to 60 liters of Sarin, while the second uses Soviet-produced 140mm rockets with a smaller Sarin warhead. These launching systems and their rockets have never been seen in rebel hands.
Meanwhile, the amount of Sarin used in the attack – many hundreds of kilograms, according to Human Rights Watch’s calculations – also indicates government responsibility for the attack. Opposition forces have never been known to be in possession of such significant amounts of Sarin, if any.
Some members of the Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra have been indicted in Turkey for trying to acquire chemicals with the intent to produce Sarin. That is indeed a worrying development, but irrelevant to the question of responsibility for the August 21 attack, which involved hundreds of liters of military-grade Sarin, not small quantities of home-made Sarin. This was not a chemical attack cooked up by opposition forces in some underground kitchen.
In appendix 5 of the UN report, after describing the two rocket systems used in the attack, the inspectors go one step further and actually reveal the trajectory of some of the rockets. Using standard field investigative techniques, examining the debris field and impact area where the rockets struck, the report provides precise azimuths, or angular measurements, that allow us to work out the actual trajectory of the rockets.
The two attack locations are located 16 kilometers apart. According to declassified reference guides, the 140mm artillery rocket launched into Moadamiya (described by the UN as “impact site number 1”) has a minimum range of 3.8 kilometers and a maximum range of 9.8 kilometers. Meanwhile, a well-known military base of the Republican Guard’s 104th Brigade is approximately 9.5 kilometers from Moadamiya.
We don’t know the firing range for the second type of rocket used, the 330mm rocket that hit Ein Tarma (impact site number 4). But that site is 9.6 kilometers away from the main Republican Guard base in Damascus, well within range of most rocket systems.
Click to enlarge map
Syria’s Chemical Weapons: The Russia Factor
EmailSeptember 26, 2013
Author(s):
Carroll Bogert
Published in:
Vedomosti (in Russian)
Russian diplomacy has dramatically changed the trajectory of Western response to the Syria crisis and put the Kremlin at the center of international negotiations to control Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. But the Russian government’s insistence that chemical weapons were used by rebel forces now places it on the fringes of a serious debate over what to do next to end the atrocities in that embattled country.
In his op-ed for the New York Times, President Putin made the case for pursuing diplomacy over military strikes in Syria. He also wrote that there is “every reason to believe” the attack was carried out by opposition forces to provoke a Western military intervention.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has continued to claim that the “obscure case of the August 21” attack was “clearly fabricated.” Last week in Damascus, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov announced that Russia would be analyzing new “evidence” from the Syrian government that exonerates their forces for the attack.
Syrian opposition forces are indeed responsible for serious crimes in their conduct of war, including attacks against civilians, summary executions, kidnappings, torture, and other abuses. They include extremist Islamist elements that should be of real concern. But they are not responsible for the August 21 chemical weapons attack, and a review of the evidence demonstrates that.
The United Nations inspection team remains the only independent group to have accessed the site of the attacks. When US military strikes against Syria appeared imminent, Russian diplomats urged the world to wait for the UN inspectors’ report. But now that the report points clearly to Syrian government responsibility for the attack, the same officials are dismissing it as “politicized,” ”biased,” and “one-sided.”
UN inspectors were able to visit sites and interview victims and eyewitnesses, but it was not within their mandate to state explicitly who they thought was responsible. But they have provided substantial evidence of Syrian government responsibility, and that evidence is backed up by a 21-page research report by Human Rights Watch, an independent, nongovernmental organization.
We analyzed witness accounts of the rocket attacks, information on the likely source of the attacks, the physical remnants of the weapon systems used, and the medical symptoms exhibited by the victims as documented by medical staff. Using this information, Human Rights Watch’s expert arms team, specialized in the identification of weapons and munitions used in conflicts around the world, made detailed reconstructions of the weapons used, and consulted internationally respected experts to analyze the symptoms shown by those sickened in the attack.
Human Rights Watch is headquartered in New York, but a visit to our website at www.hrw.org will easily show that we are often vehement critics of US foreign policy and have more than a 30-year track record of documenting and criticizing US government violations of human rights at home. Contrary to some Russian media reports, we have not taken a position favoring US military strikes in Syria. But we have published dozens of reports, briefing papers, and extended press releases in the two and a half years since the Arab Uprisings spread to Syria, beginning as a protest movement against the authoritarian government and now morphing into a devastating civil war. We have reported on violations of international humanitarian law by both sides
Everyone agrees that the August 21 attacks took place at two sites 16 kilometers apart. They were caused by surface-to-surface rockets, not on-the-ground explosions.
The UN inspectors, as well as Human Rights Watch, identified two systems that launched the rockets carrying Sarin into Ghouta. Both systems are known to be in the arsenal of the Syrian armed forces. One system launches 330mm rockets-most likely Syrian produced- from truck-mounted launchers, each rocket carrying canisters of 50 to 60 liters of Sarin, while the second uses Soviet-produced 140mm rockets with a smaller Sarin warhead. These launching systems and their rockets have never been seen in rebel hands.
Meanwhile, the amount of Sarin used in the attack – many hundreds of kilograms, according to Human Rights Watch’s calculations – also indicates government responsibility for the attack. Opposition forces have never been known to be in possession of such significant amounts of Sarin, if any.
Some members of the Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusra have been indicted in Turkey for trying to acquire chemicals with the intent to produce Sarin. That is indeed a worrying development, but irrelevant to the question of responsibility for the August 21 attack, which involved hundreds of liters of military-grade Sarin, not small quantities of home-made Sarin. This was not a chemical attack cooked up by opposition forces in some underground kitchen.
In appendix 5 of the UN report, after describing the two rocket systems used in the attack, the inspectors go one step further and actually reveal the trajectory of some of the rockets. Using standard field investigative techniques, examining the debris field and impact area where the rockets struck, the report provides precise azimuths, or angular measurements, that allow us to work out the actual trajectory of the rockets.
The two attack locations are located 16 kilometers apart. According to declassified reference guides, the 140mm artillery rocket launched into Moadamiya (described by the UN as “impact site number 1”) has a minimum range of 3.8 kilometers and a maximum range of 9.8 kilometers. Meanwhile, a well-known military base of the Republican Guard’s 104th Brigade is approximately 9.5 kilometers from Moadamiya.
We don’t know the firing range for the second type of rocket used, the 330mm rocket that hit Ein Tarma (impact site number 4). But that site is 9.6 kilometers away from the main Republican Guard base in Damascus, well within range of most rocket systems.
Click to enlarge map
