Both sides blame the other for sniper fire at UN team
Print Edition
Snipers opened fire at a UN convoy carrying a team investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons outside of Damascus, a United Nations spokesman said yesterday.
The Syrian government accused rebel forces of firing at the team, while the opposition said a pro-government militia was behind the attack.
The inspectors eventually arrived in Moadamiyeh, a western suburb of the capital and one of the areas where last week’s attack allegedly occurred.
UN team members spent three hours at a makeshift hospital, meeting doctors and taking blood, hair and tissue samples from victims before they headed back to Damascus.
The United States has said that there is little doubt President Bashar Assad’s regime was responsible for the August 21 attack in the capital’s suburbs. Assad has denied launching a chemical attack.
The shooting came as support for an international military response was mounting if it is confirmed that Assad’s troops used chemical weapons. France, Britain, Israel and some US congressmen have said such a response against the Syrian regime should be an option.
Russia, meanwhile, said Western nations calling for military action have no proof the Syrian government was behind the chemical attacks.
The Syrian government said that its forces provided security for the team until they reached a position controlled by the rebels, where the government claimed the sniper attack occurred.
Martin Nesirky, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said one of the UN vehicles was “deliberately shot at multiple times.”
Nesirky said the car was “no longer serviceable” after the shooting, forcing the team to return to a government checkpoint to replace the vehicle.
In a statement broadcast on Syrian TV, the government said it “holds the terrorist gangs responsible for the safety of the United Nations team.”
Wassim al-Ahmad, a member of the Moadamiyeh local council, and the main Syrian opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Coalition, claimed that members of a pro-government militia known as the Popular Committees fired at the UN team to prevent them from going in.
The rebel coalition said the UN convoy came under attack near the final checkpoint between rebel and regime-controlled areas, calling it an attempt by the regime “to intimidate the UN team and prevent it from discovering the truth about Assad’s chemical weapons attack against civilians.”
Al-Ahmad said five UN investigators eventually arrived at a makeshift hospital in the suburb, where doctors and about 100 people still suffering symptoms from the alleged chemical attack were brought in to meet the UN team.
“They are late, they came six days late,” al-Ahmad said, referring to the time it took the UN team to arrive. “All the people have already been buried.”
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