Update on the Chemical Weapons Attack in Douma on the 7th of April

The OPCW Fact Finding Mission has reported on the technical details of the attack and there are some key takeaways from my previous post

I speculated based on imagery evidence at the time that Chlorine Gas and Sarin Gas were used.What the FFM reported was;

The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties. Along with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain of custody

Which is to say that there was no Sarin or the compounds it breaks down into found in the environment or in blood sample from victims. Even if imagery shows injuries consistent with Sarin usage. This makes a lot of sense since the canisters dropped from the two Mi-8 helicopters are only consistent with the use or Chlorine Gas.

As well as this, the FFM says that "various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites" which is to say that Chlorine gas was used and was found in samples at both sites, which I assume means in both environment and blood samples.

What I find interesting is that the OPCW recently voted to attribute CW attacks but there was no attribution of who committed the attack in either Douma on the 7th of April or in Al-Hamadaniya on 30 of October 2016 and Karm al-Tarrab 13th of November 2016 which were also included in this report.

Paddy Kerley

Paddy Kerley

Ireland