Syrian government to blame for April sarin attack: U.N. report

FILE PHOTO: A man breathes through an oxygen mask as another one receives treatments, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad is to blame for a chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people last April, according to a report sent to the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.

“The Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April 2017,” the report from the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) said.

The attack prompted a U.S. missile strike against a Syrian air base which Washington said was used to launch the strike.

“Time and again, we see independent confirmation of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime,” Nikki Haley, the United States’ U.N. ambassador, said in a statement.

“The Security Council must send a clear message that the use of chemical weapons by anyone will not be tolerated, and must fully support the work of the impartial investigators.”

The report also said ISIS was to blame for the use of sulfur mustard in the Syrian town of Umm Hawsh on Sept. 15 and 16, 2016.

Strikes kill 13 civilians in Syria Idlib province

A Syrian rides past a destroyed building in the Jisr al-Shughur district of Idlib province, on September 29, 2017

BEIRUT (AFP) -  October,07,  2017-- Two waves of air strikes on a jihadist-held town in northwestern Syria have killed at least 13 civilians over the past 24 hours, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

Four children were among the dead in the early morning strikes on the Idlib province town of Khan Sheikhun on Friday and Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said the strikes were probably carried out by the Syrian air force, which has been carrying out an intensifying bombing campaign against jihadist targets in Idlib province alongside aircraft from ally Russia.

Like most of the rest of Idlib province, Khan Sheikhun is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance of jihadist factions dominated by Al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate.

The town hit the headlines in April when it was the target of a sarin gas attack that killed at least 87 people, 30 of them children.

US President Donald Trump blamed the Syrian government for the attack and ordered cruise missile strikes on the airbase from which he said it had been launched.

A safe zone was supposed to be established in Idlib and adjacent areas of Hama and Latakia provinces under a deal reached in May by rebel backer Turkey and government backers Iran and Russia.

But during the summer the jihadists, who are not party to the agreement, drove out Islamist former allies from Idlib and took nearly full control.

 There has also been a heavy civilian death toll, according to the Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring group.