Report: Tests Link Syrian Gov’t Stockpile to Tragic Sarin Attacks

Chemical weapons from the Syrian government have been—for the first time ever—linked through laboratory testing to the deadliest sarin gas attack of the country’s civil war, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The samples were taken during a United Nations mission in a Damascus suburb following the August 2013 nerve-agent attack that killed hundreds of civilians. They were compared to the chemicals given to the U.N. for destruction in 2014. These findings, according to a Reuters report, support claims that Syrian government forces led by President Bashar al-Assad were behind the 2013 tragedy. Reuters reports the tests also found “markers” from samples taken at the location of other attacks, in Idlib in April 2017 and in Khan al-Assal, in Aleppo province, in March 2013. “We compared Khan Sheikhoun, Khan al-Assal, Ghouta,” a source told Reuters. “There were signatures in all three of them that matched.”