OPCW Investigation Finds Syrian Air Force Responsible For 2018 Duma Chemical Attack

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published January 27, 2023 | 08:22 PM

The Investigation and Identification Team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded that the Syrian Air Force carried out the deadly chemical weapons attack in the Syrian city of Duma in April 2018, according to IIT's new report published on Friday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) The Investigation and Identification Team of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concluded that the Syrian Air Force carried out the deadly chemical weapons attack in the Syrian city of Duma in April 2018, according to IIT's new report published on Friday.

"The OPCW Investigation and Identification Team (IIT)'s third report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the Syrian Arab Air Forces were the perpetrators of the chemical weapons attack on 7 April 2018 in Douma, Syrian Arab Republic," the organization said in a press release regarding the report.

The IIT reviewed over 19,000 files, obtained and assessed 66 witness statements, as well as considered data related to 70 samples related to the investigation between January 2021 and December 2022.

The analysis of all obtained information showed that between 19:10 and 19:40 local time (16:10-16:40 GMT) on April 7, 2018, at least one Mi-8/17 helicopter of the Syrian army's elite formation, Tiger Forces, dropped two yellow cylinders in the city center.

One of the cylinders "hit the rooftop floor of a three-storey residential building without fully penetrating it, ruptured, and rapidly released toxic gas�chlorine�in very high concentrations, which rapidly dispersed within the building, killing 43 named individuals and affecting dozens more," the document read.

The Investigation and Identification Team was created at a special session of the OPCW in 2018 in response to calls by the United States and its allies to find those responsible for suspected chemical attacks on civilians in Syria, which they blamed on the government of President Bashar Assad.