グータ化学攻撃
カーン・アル・アサル化学攻撃は2013年3月19日に起こった。シリア北部のアレッポの地区であり、政府の管轄下にあったカーン・アル・アサルは、サリンを含んだロケットに攻撃された。シリア人権監視団によると、この攻撃による犠牲者は最低で16人の政府軍兵士と10人の市民を含む26人にのぼった。シリア政府は後に国際連合に対し、1人の兵士19人の市民が死亡し、17人の兵士と107人の市民が負傷したと報告した。地元の病院の医師はシリア軍の兵士が死傷者の処置に当っているのを目撃したと述べている。シリア政府は化学攻撃があった当日に国際連合安全保障理事会に対しその攻撃について報告した。翌日、シリア政府は国連による専門的で公正な調査を依頼した。その依頼を受けて、国連事務総長の潘基文は国連事実調査団を設立した。この調査団は"国連によるシリア・アラブ共和国の化学兵器使用の疑いに関する調査団"と名付けられた。
In early September, the United States Congress began debating a proposed authorisation to use military force, although votes on the resolution were indefinitely postponed amid opposition from many legislators and tentative agreement between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin on an alternative proposal, under which Syria would declare and surrender its chemical weapons to be destroyed under international supervision.
In contrast to the positions of their governments, polls in early September indicated that most people in the US, UK, Germany and France opposed military intervention in Syria.
The UN report on the investigation into the Ghouta chemical attacks was published on 16 September 2013. The report stated: "the environmental, chemical and medical samples we have collected provide clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used in Ein Tarma, Moadamiyah and Zamalka in the Ghouta area of Damascus." UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the findings "beyond doubt and beyond the pale,” and clear evidence of a war crime. "The results are overwhelming and indisputable," he said. Ban stated a majority of the blood samples, environmental samples and rockets or rocket fragments recovered tested positive for sarin.
The UN inspection team returned to Syria to continue investigations into other alleged chemical attacks in late September 2013. A final report on Ghouta and six other alleged attacks (including three alleged to have occurred after the Ghouta attack) was released in December 2013. The inspectors wrote that they "collected clear and convincing evidence that chemical weapons were used also against civilians, including children, on a relatively large scale in the Ghouta area of Damascus on 21 August 2013." The conclusion was based on:
Doctors Without Borders also reported seeing a "large number of victims arriving with symptoms including convulsions, excessive saliva, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress." Symptoms reported by Ghouta residents and doctors to Human Rights Watch included "suffocation, muscle spasms and frothing at the mouth."
Witness statements to The Guardian about symptoms included "people who were sleeping in their homes [who] died in their beds," headaches and nausea, "foam coming out of [victims'] mouths and noses," a "smell something like vinegar and rotten eggs," suffocation, "bodies [that] were turning blue," a "smell like cooking gas" and redness and itching of the eyes.
(As to whether the classified summary is the same, I couldn't possibly comment, but again, draw your own conclusion.)" Grayson cited as a problematic example the intercepted phone call between a Syrian Ministry of Defense official and the Syrian 155th Brigade, the transcript of which was not provided in the classified report, leaving Grayson unable to judge the accuracy of a report in The Daily Caller that the call's implications had been misrepresented in the report.