Chemical weapons were probably used in four locations in Syria this year, in addition to the confirmed attack near Damascus in August that forced the government to abandon its secret chemical stockpile, UN inspectors have said.
In a report released Thursday, the experts, led by Swedish professor Ake Sellstrom, examined seven alleged chemical weapons attacks and said it lacked information to corroborate the allegations at two locations.
The inspectors' limited mandate barred them from identifying whether the government or opposition fighters were responsible for any of the attacks.
Thursday's report said evidence indicated chemical weapons were probably used in Khan al Assal outside Aleppo, Jobar in Damascus' eastern suburbs, Saraqueb near Idlib in the northwest, and Ashrafiah Sahnaya in the Damascus countryside. In two cases, it found "signatures of sarin."
The government and opposition accused each other of using chemical weapons at Khan al Assal and the report said none of the parties in Syria denied their use in the village. The allegations of chemical weapons use at Jobar and Ashrafiah Sahnaya were made by the Syrian government, while Britain and France raised the allegations about Saraqueb.
In an initial report on Sept. 16, Sellstrom's team concluded that evidence collected in the Ghouta area of Damascus following an Aug. 21 attack provided "clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used." Graphic video footage showed dozens of people gasping for air and bodies lined up and the US government said more than 1,400 people were killed.
The confirmed use of chemical weapons in Ghouta, and the threat of possible US military action, led to a US-Russian agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons by mid-2014. The process of getting Syrian chemicals that can be used to make weapons out of the country is currently underway.
The experts said they collected "credible information that corroborates the allegations that chemical weapons were used in Khan al Assal on March 19, 2013 against soldiers and civilians.
On another note, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported that authorities released 366 prisoners from Aleppo central prison in light of a decision by two judicial committees formed upon the directions of the Minister of Justice to reconsider the situations of the prisoners from a humanitarian vision due to the siege imposed on the prison by terrorists.
In a statement to the Syrian TV, First Prosecutor in Aleppo Ibrahim Hilal said that the central prison of Aleppo has suffered for more than a year and a half from injustice siege imposed by the armed terrorist groups which affected the prisoners, so the Minister of Justice gave order to decrease the number of the prisoners as much as possible.
On another note, Syria's state media and an opposition activist group say many civilians are feared dead in a town near Damascus after parts of it were captured by Islamic rebels.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it has documented the names of 19 civilians killed by hard-liners over the past two days in Adra, northeast of Damascus.
The Observatory says the civilians were minority Alawite and Druze.
Syrian Minister of Social Affairs Kinda Shammat described on Friday what happened in Adra as a "massacre."
The TV and other state-run media are blaming "terrorists" for the killings, a term used by the government to refer to opposition fighters.
Shammat told Syrian TV that the army was now carrying out an operation in the area, an industrial section of the town.
AP/LBCI