SYRIA (Reuters) — The world’s chemical weapons watchdog said the banned nerve agent sarin was used in an attack in northern Syria in April that killed dozens of people, a report from a fact-finding team seen by Reuters on Thursday (June 29) showed.
The report was circulated to members of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, but was not made public.
The attack on April 4 in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northern Idlib province was the most deadly in Syria’s civil war in more than three years. It prompted a U.S. missile strike against a Syrian air base which Washington said was used to launch the strike.
British foreign secretary Boris Johnson said he felt the indications suggested Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government were behind the attack, a claim strongly denied by Damascus.
A joint United Nations and OPCW investigation, known as the JIM, can now look into the incident to determine who is to blame.
The JIM has found Syrian government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015 and that Islamic State militants used mustard gas.
Western intelligence agencies had also blamed the government of Bashar al-Assad for the April chemical attack. Syrian officials have repeatedly denied using banned toxins in the conflict.