‘The total impunity of Damascus is not limited to its chemical weapons use’

On the 10th anniversary of the Aug. 21 2013 chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, L’Orient-Le Jour spoke to Lennie Phillips, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute. ... "Since the Ghouta attack there have been hundreds of allegations in open-source alone of the continued use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, almost all of which were in civilian populated areas. There is also anecdotal information that there has been ongoing use of chemical weapons against opposition combatants as well as against civilians and combatants in areas held by Daesh [the self-styled Islamic State group]. This widespread use, after [the] supposed dismantlement of the Syrian chemical weapons program, is an absolute indicator that the Syrian government did not declare all its chemical weapons and did not destroy all its chemical weapons" [he said].