Originally published on September 17, 2013
The United Nations released a report on Monday that confirmed the use of sarin gas in an August 21 poison gas attack in Syria that killed more than 1,400 people.
Use of the nerve agent in Syria is the most significant proof for the United States, Britain and France that the al-Assad regime is responsible for the deaths.
"This is the most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them in Halabja [Iraq] in 1988," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement, according to Reuters. "The international community has pledged to prevent any such horror from recurring, yet it has happened again."
U.N. chemical experts concluded that weather conditions that day ensured that as many people as possible were injured or killed, according to Reuters. Temperatures were falling between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., it said, which meant that air was moving downwards toward the ground.
"Chemical weapons use in such meteorological conditions maximizes their potential impact as the heavy gas can stay close to the ground and penetrate into lower levels of buildings and constructions where many people were seeking shelter," the report said.
Although the report falls short of assigning blame of the attack to government forces, it does highlights that the weapons used to deliver the gas, including 122 mm rockets, are not in the arsenal of rebel forces.
The report all but confirms government responsibility for the attack.
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