Syria Is Using Chemical Weapons Again, Rescue Workers Say

NY Times ^ | May 6, 2015 | Anne Barnard and Somini Sengupta

[C19fan]

Eyes watering, struggling to breathe, Abd al-Mouin, 22, dragged his nephews from a house reeking of noxious fumes, then briefly blacked out. Even fresh air, he recalled, was “burning my lungs.”

The chaos unfolded in the Syrian town of Sarmeen one night this spring as walkie-talkies warned of helicopters flying from a nearby army base, a signal for residents to take cover. Soon, residents said, there were sounds of aircraft, a smell of bleach and gasping victims streaming to a clinic.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Well, you can’t really dismantle it, it’s an element. What we normally think of as “nerve gas” eg; Sarin, Soman, Tabun, even mustard gas, these are reasonably complex chemicals that are not that easy to make, plus you better have incredibly good manufacturing apparatus or you’ll fall over dead. You electrolyze seawater (but preferably, much much saltier water) and can get chlorine. So it’s nothing to make.

[Ingtar]

Which of the roughly 15 factions is using them? Where is their proof?

[SunkenCiv]

Why would a ruthless, mass-murdering dictator who operates in a consequence-free diplomatic environment want to do that?

[The_Republic_Of_Maine]

I’m sorry, but what I said was “It was never proved that it was the Syrian g0vt that used chemical weapons the first time.”

So your question: “Which of the roughly 15 factions is using them? Where is their proof?”

doesn’t make any sense to me.

[Ingtar]

I was supporting what you said, badly, apparently. The last time there ended up being proof that they were used. Trying to figure out which faction used them was a different matter.

[Cedar]

Just now noticed, I meant to say “writhing” -—

“...children and adults struggling to breathe, writing on the floor, and many dead bodies.”