Exclusive: Kareem Shaheen reports from Khan Sheikhun, where he was the first reporter from western media to reach the site of this week’s devastating attack Kareem Shaheen in Khan Sheikhun The Guardian
Graves of the dead are still fresh from funerals the day before, the red soil still upturned. Photograph: Kareem Shaheen for the Guardian Link
The only reminder of what happened is a small, blackened crater near the northern part of town, where a rocket laced with a nerve agent fell, killing more than 70 people in one of the worst mass casualty chemical attacks in the six-year war in Syria.
All that remains of the attack on the town in rebel-held Idlib province is a faint stench that tingles the nostrils and a small green fragment from the rocket. The houses nearby are emptied of the living.
The victims’ symptoms are consistent with sarin, the nerve agent that was dropped on an opposition-held area near Damascus in 2013, killing more than 1,000 people. After that attack the regime supposedly gave up its chemical weapons arsenal.
Moscow, Bashar al-Assad’s principal backer in the war, said the Syrian government had bombed a rebel-run toxic gas manufacturing plant in Khan Sheikhun, and that the gas subsequently leaked out.
The Guardian, the first western media organisation to visit the site of the attack, examined a warehouse and silos directly next to where the missile landed, and found nothing but an abandoned space covered in dust and half-destroyed silos reeking of leftover grain and animal manure.
Local residents said the silos had been damaged in air raids six months ago, and had stood unused since then.
“You can look at it; there’s nothing there except maybe some grain and animal dung, and there’s even a dead goat there that suffocated in the attack,” one local said. Residents responded in disbelief to the Russian allegation.
There was no evidence that any building had being hit in recent days or weeks near where so many people were killed and wounded by a nerve agent. The homes across the street appeared undamaged from the outside. There was no contamination zone near any building. Instead, the contamination area radiated from a hole in a road.
A label marks the site of the attack. Photograph: Kareem Shaheen for the Guardian
The Guardian interviewed witnesses, first responders, victims’ family members and the wounded in an effort to reconstruct the attack. They offered fresh details that shed new light on an incident that has prompted worldwide condemnation and refocused attention on the brutality of the Syrian war.
“It was like Judgment Day,” said Hamid Khutainy, a civil defence volunteer in Khan Sheikhoun.
Witnesses said the air raids began shortly after 6.30am on Tuesday, with four bombings around the town. Initially they thought it was just another airstrike, until the first responders who arrived at the scene began falling to the ground.
Khutainy said: “They told us, ‘HQ, we are losing control.’ We had no idea what they were trying to say. Then they said, ‘Come save us, we can no longer walk.’ So the second and third teams went with just face masks. We could smell it from 500 metres away.”
Local people and first responders described a scene of utter horror at the attack site. The wounded were shaking and convulsing on the ground, foaming at the mouth, their lips blue, passing in and out of consciousness.
“I found children lying on the ground, in their last breaths, their lips going blue,” said Abu al-Baraa, lives nearby and rushed to help when the full extent of what had happened dawned on him.
“We went into the houses and we found children dead in their beds, people who were trying to flee down the stairs who collapsed in their place,” he said, standing across the street from the crater left by the missile. “People on the rooftops and in the basements. People on the ground in the street. Wherever you looked there were dead human beings.”
The warehouse next to where the missile landed – now an abandoned space covered in dust. Photograph: Kareem Shaheen for the Guardian
The suffocating patients and the dead were taken to the nearby civil defence centre and the adjacent clinic, built into the side of a rocky mountainous outcrop to withstand potential airstrikes. The dead were laid in a nearby shed while emergency workers hosed down the injured with water and administered atropine, a nerve agent antidote.
But while medical workers were trying to come to grips with the crisis, between eight and 10 airstrikes targeted the medical facility and civil defence centre. The shed collapsed on the dead, and the site was put out of service.
“Maybe the pilots heard the myth that you could come back to life 48 hours after dying from sarin, so they decided to bomb them again just in case,” said an official from the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group who was on the scene. “Thank God there is a Day of Judgment in the afterlife.”
The Guardian visited the destroyed medical facility and civil defence centre briefly. Local people said reconnaissance planes had been spotted in the sky earlier and believed the area might be targeted again later in the day.
The site was filled with rubble. Inside, hospital equipment, beds, surgical instruments and small boxes of medicine lay covered in dust or broken on the ground. There were no weapons in sight, and the rooms inside the cave were darkened with the electricity knocked out.
In a nearby cemetery, the graves of the dead are still fresh from the funerals the day before, the red soil still upturned. In one corner 18 new graves were set up, the names barely etched with a rough chisel on the tombstones. They contained the bodies of 20 people, including two children who were buried with their mother. They were all from the same family.
Abdulhamid al-Yousef, one of the few survivors in the family, was receiving condolences at his home in Khan Sheikhoun, a day after burying his wife and nine-month-old twins, Ahmed and Aya, fighting back tears.
Yousef had rushed to help the other victims of the attack. He came back instead to find that much of his family had perished, including siblings, nephews and nieces. His wife and children had rushed down to the bomb shelter in their basement, only for the toxic gas to seep into it, killing them all.
That evening at the cemetery, he insisted on carrying his two infants in his arms to bury them himself.
Abdulhamid, almost in a trance, repeated the children’s names, choking as he did so.
“Aya, and Ahmed, my souls. Yasser and Ahmed, my brothers who had my back. Ammoura and Hammoudi, Shaimaa, so many others,” he said.
It is time for US to follow through on 'red lines' against Assad’s chemical attacks, Allen tells Middle East Eye Link
NEW YORK, United States – US President Donald Trump should answer a suspected chemical attack in Syria that left scores dead by grounding the country’s air force, retired General John Allen told Middle East Eye on Wednesday.
Allen, former US President Barack Obama’s envoy to the global coalition to counter the Islamic State (IS) group and a four-star Marine Corps general, said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would continue gassing civilians “with impunity” without a tough US response.
“I think we’re going to have to put the Syrian air force on the ground,” Allen told MEE at an event in New York.
“Those elements that can deliver poison gas, whether it’s off a barrel bomb, off a helicopter or fixed-wing tactical aviation. I think we're going to have to think very seriously about putting that air force on the ground where it can’t get up in the air again.”
Allen spoke with MEE as diplomats rowed in New York over an alleged chemical weapons attack in the early hours on Tuesday on a rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun, in Idlib province, that left at least 72 people dead, including 20 children.
Dozens more were left gasping for air, convulsing and foaming at the mouth, according to doctors. It is thought to be the worst chemical weapons attack in Syria since 2013, when sarin gas was used. The Syrian military has denied responsibility.
“If Bashar al-Assad believes with impunity that he has the support of the Russians to drop VX [nerve agent] gas on unarmed civilians … that means he’s going to use it over and over again,” said Allen, now an analyst at the Brookings Institution think-tank.
“I think President Trump is confronted with a real moment right now. I think acting would set a condition in that conflict that no one would expect, and I think would change that conflict pretty dramatically.”
Chemical attacks and the ‘red line’
Pentagon chiefs have long hatched plans to ground Assad’s air force and halt civilian deaths. Allen was among those who criticized Obama for failing to enforce his own “red line” against Assad’s government for using poison gas in Damascus in 2013.
Speaking earlier in Washington on Wednesday, Trump accused Assad’s government of going “beyond a red line” with a poison gas attack on civilians, but he declined to spell out how or whether his administration would respond.
In his first extensive remarks on the latest alleged atrocity in Syria, Trump acknowledged at a joint news conference with Jordan's King Abdullah that he now had responsibility for policy there and said his views of Assad had changed.
“It crossed a lot of lines for me,” Trump said of the attack, which he described as an affront to humanity. “That crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line,” he said.
Western countries, including the US, have blamed Assad’s armed forces for the worst chemical attack in Syria in more than four years. Russia, a military backer of Assad in the country’s six-year-old civil war, asserted that Syrian rebels were to blame for the gas attack.
Trump, a Republican, criticised Obama for not following through on his threat to intervene if chemical weapons were used in Syria. Obama had squandered a “great opportunity” to solve the crisis by failing to uphold his “red line”, said Trump.
“I think that set us back a long ways, not only in Syria but in many other parts of the world, because it was a blank threat,” Trump said. “It is now my responsibility. It was a great opportunity missed.”
‘You’ll see’
Asked during an earlier Oval Office meeting with Abdullah if he was formulating a new policy toward Syria, Trump told reporters: "You'll see". His comments came just a few days after US statements suggesting a focus on stopping IS militants rather than ousting Assad.
Trump campaigned in the 2016 election on a promise to put America first in foreign policy, including by tightening rules on refugees. On Wednesday, in addition to hardening his language on Assad, he softened his remarks about those were displaced by the war.
Last month, US-led coalition aircraft dropped fighters for the first time into an area near the Syrian city of Raqqa to retake IS territory in a mission that included Apache helicopters, US Marine Corps artillery and special operations troops.
The campaign to capture Raqqa appears to be gathering pace as an overlapping, US-backed effort in Iraq is drawing closer to driving IS from Mosul.
In New York, Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the United Nations, warned that Washington could take unilateral action if the UN Security Council did not respond firmly to the suspected chemical attack.
“When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action,” Haley said, without elaborating.
Britain, France and the United States, which holds the council presidency in April, have presented a draft resolution demanding a full investigation of the attack. Russia said the text was “categorically unacceptable”.
Negotiations continued on the proposed measure throughout most of the day. Diplomats said it could come up for a vote at the council as early as Thursday.
لم أستطع أن أتجاوز الكتابة عن سورية هذا الأسبوع، على الرغم من محاولتي البحث عن موضوع آخر، فالعالم يعيش مرحلةً تتسم بسرعة الأحداث التي توحي بأن تغيرات كبيرة ستحصل، فمجزرة خان شيخون تعيد مسك كل مكنونات الوضع السوري، حيث يظهر واضحاً أن النظام ما زال يمتلك أسلحة كيماوية (ربما سُمح له بها لكي يلقيها على الشعب)، وأنه جريء إلى حد أن يقوم بذلك الآن، ربما بعد أن ركن إلى الدعم الروسي القوي، والميل الأميركي إلى إظهار ما كان يبدو احتمالياً، أي الحديث بوضوح أكبر عن بقاء بشار الأسد والتحالف معه لضرب "الإرهاب" (بات يجب أن توضع هذه الكلمة بين ألف قوس).
وأيضاً ظهر بفجاجة تلاشي أي قيمةٍ أخلاقية لدى الممانعة التي لا تزال تكرّر أن ما يحدث في الواقع هو "صور مفبركة"، هذه الكذبة التي اخترعها النظام، منذ البدء، للتغطية على كل الجرائم التي اقترفها، وأتت لكي تكون "غشاء البكارة" الذي يغطي كل سفالات الممانعين، حيث لا بدّ من التغطية على دعمهم لنظام مجرم. وبالتالي، لا بدّ من نفي كل جريمة يقوم بها، واعتبار أنها من صنع "المؤامرة" الإمبريالية السعودية القطرية. هؤلاء مجرمون، مثل النظام الذي يقوم بأقذر "مهمة تاريخية" خدمة للإمبرياليتين، الروسية والأميركية، وكل الإمبرياليات التي تريد تدمير مسار الثورة الذي اشتعل هنا والآن. وروسيا التي تقصف وتقتل وتدمر يومياً، لا تزال تغطي جرائم ضد الإنسانية، بل وتكملها بجرائم أخرى باستخدامها أحدث أسلحتها التي باتت سورية هي "ساحة التدريب" التي توضّح قدرات تلك الأسلحة، و"تفوقها". لهذا، هي مجرمة، وتغطي جرائم إبادة ضد الإنسانية، فهي كذلك تخاف الثورة التي ستطل من موسكو، وربما يمارس الرئيس الروسي، فلاديمير بوتين، ما مارسه في الشيشان، حين دمّر غروزني وقتل مئات الآلاف، وما يتدرب على ممارسته الآن في سورية. والنظم العربية كلها ليست معنية بما يجري، ربما على العكس كذلك، فهي معنيةٌ بتدمير المسار الثوري الذي بدأ في البلدان العربية ولن يتوقف. وهذا موقف أميركا منذ البدء، حيث أرادت من يطفئ هذا الحريق الذي بدأ بالشكل الأشد دموية، وكانت تعرف أن النظام السوري هو القادر على هذه "المهمة التاريخية". لهذا ظلت تناور لمصلحته، وظلت تكبح تطوّر الثورة، ولعبت بورقة "داعش" وقوات سورية الديمقراطية، لكي تحوّل الصراع إلى منازعات بين قوى محلية، ودعمت كل الدول الخليجية التي لعبت على وتر أسلمة الثورة ودعم الأصولية. لهذا، ليس هؤلاء كلهم معنيين بالمجزرة، لا الحالية في خان شيخون والقتل في سلقين، ولا كل المجازر السابقة، بل ربما على العكس هم الأكثر حاجة لها لكي ينطفئ الحريق الثوري الذي أخافها، بل أرعبها. هذا ما يعطي بشار الأسد الضوء الأخضر، لكي يستمرّ في القتل والتدمير، وباستخدام كل الأسلحة الممكنة، بما في ذلك الأسلحة الكيماوية، فهو يريد سورية بعدد قليل من السكان، بحجم مطامحه الضيقة، ومن ثم لا يتراجع عن قتل أغلبية السوريين، أو تهجيرهم، أو سجنهم وقتلهم في السجون.
هذه هي صورة الوضع التي تفرض اعتبار الروس مجرمين وأعداء، واعتبار أن المطلوب هو الشغل على تحويل أركان النظام وروسيا وإيران إلى المحاكم الجنائية. لكن كذلك إنهاء لعبة التفاوض التي باتت تكرّر المفاوضات الفلسطينية التي ظلت بلا جدوى. ورفض اعتبار الروس وسيطاً بل قوة احتلال، والتعامل معها باعتبارها قوة احتلال. فلولاها لما بقي النظام، ولا مارس كل هذه المجازر، وكذلك الأمر فيما يخص إيران وحزب الله، وكل "الهلمّ" الطائفي الذي تجمع في الميلين من المصدر نفسه. فهؤلاء هم من أوجد القوى الطائفية "الشيعية"، وكذلك "السنية"، أقصد "داعش" وجبهة النصرة وعصابات أخرى زُرعت باسم الثورة.
ليس العالم من سيحاسب، فهو مرتاح لما يجري، بل نحن من يجب أن يحاسَب.
Experts believe a nerve agent such as sarin gas was deployed from the air
Amnesty International authenticated and analyzed dozens of videos from attack site
Deadliest chemical attack since 2013 follows other chemical weapons use and widespread war crimes using conventional weapons
Evidence gathered is suggesting a nerve agent was used in an air-launched chemical attack which killed more than 70 and injured hundreds of civilians in Khan Sheikhoun in Syria’s northern province of Idleb, Amnesty International revealed as the UN Security Council meets for an emergency meeting in New York this morning.
The organization is urging the Security Council to immediately adopt a resolution that will enforce the prohibition of chemical weapons attacks and facilitate bringing the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.
“Security Council members, and in particular Russia and China, have displayed callous disregard for human life in Syria by repeatedly failing to pass resolutions that would allow for punitive measures to be taken against those committing war crimes and other serious violations in Syria,” said Anna Neistat, Senior Director of Research at Amnesty International. “The Security Council must immediately vote to investigate this attack and help bring those responsible to justice. Failure to do so would be catastrophic, risking further emboldening governments and armed groups in Syria to target civilians in war crimes with banned and conventional weapons alike.”
The Security Council must immediately vote to investigate this attack and help bring those responsible to justice. Failure to do so would be catastrophic, risking further emboldening governments and armed groups in Syria to target civilians in war crimes with banned and conventional weapons alike.
Many of the victims of the attack, which occurred around 6:30a.m. local time on Tuesday 4 April, appear to have been poisoned as they slept in their beds. Chemical weapons experts working with Amnesty International have confirmed that victims are very likely to have been exposed to a nerve agent, or an organophosphorus compound, such as sarin. Experts do not believe that chlorine gas was used, as in previous chemical attacks in the Syrian conflict.
Video evidence
Amnesty International was also able to authenticate more than 25 pieces of video footage shot in the aftermath of the chemical weapons attack. Some videos are of sufficient quality for experts to observe victims with pinpoint pupils, described as a classic symptom of nerve gas poisoning. There are reports of medical staff suffering from secondary exposure, which would also be consistent with the use of a nerve agent. In some videos, victims displayed no twitching or jerky movements which experts agree suggest cases of extreme poisoning. In others, including videos of children, the patients are trembling. One piece of footage, which Amnesty International has corroborated with other available content, shows nine children lying lifeless in the back of a pick-up truck. The children, little girls and boys, are naked or partially dressed; they appear to have died in their beds. No signs of trauma are visible on their corpses, which is consistent with chemical poisoning.
Other videos made in medical facilities in the aftermath of the attack show many people being treated for respiratory distress, as well as more images of dead children and adults. There are no obvious signs of bloody wounds or shrapnel injuries.
“This is the deadliest chemical attack in Syria since the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 2118 in September 2013 for the elimination of Syria’schemical weapons,” said Anna Neistat. “The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the UN have jointly confirmed several chemical weapon attacks since then, by government and non-government forces alike. It is appalling that nobody has been brought to justice.”
Interviews with medical workers in Idleb
Amnesty International interviewed a nurse, who was working at the Al Rahma hospital on the morning of the attack. He remembers checking his watch at around 6:20a.m. when he was having his morning coffee and all was quiet until then.
“The sound of the explosion was not what we are used to – my colleagues and I thought that this one hadn't exploded, because of the thump sound it made, not an explosion sound. A few minutes later, around 6:35a.m., the first victims were brought in – and then the flow just kept going until around 9a.m. There was a huge number of people and aides being brought in, and there were only four of us medics at the hospital at the time, and one of us also got infected.”
The nurse also described unfamiliar symptoms:
“The smell reached us here in the centre; it smelled like rotten food. We've received victims of chlorine attacks before – this was completely different. Victims had vomit from the nose and mouth, a dark yellow colour, sometimes turning to brown. Paralysis in respiratory functions – children were dying faster than adults because of this. We tried injections … but it just didn't work. Victims were unable to swallow, they were unconscious, completely unresponsive.”
“The use of chemical weapons is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime. The international community must show outrage and take all possible measures to protect the Syrian people and the people of the world from such horrific acts,” said Anna Neistat.
A doctor working at the specialized surgery hospital, some 50 kilometres away from the site of the attack also gave his account of the incident.
Children are the first ones to die, they cannot fight this back.
“Victims were sent first to the closest hospitals, so by the time they reached us, it was around 8am. The attack happened at 6.42am exactly. Victims, including around 70 dead, have reached a total of around 400 people, who were spread out between the different medical centres, and those taken to Turkey. Most of the victims we received were still alive. Those who died didn't make it to us. Two persons brought in here died in hospital.
“Victims reached us in different states - some had muscular and respiratory paralysis, which we tried treating with tranquilizers and Atropine.
"They had secretions from the mouth and nose that were white. Some were completely unconscious. Some had severe muscular pain.
"Children are the first ones to die, they cannot fight this back. We only had one child who, thank God, survived. “
Background
Khan Sheikhoun is a small town on the Damascus highway in rural Idleb, which is one of the few areas in northeastern Syria to remain under opposition control. In recent months Idleb has become collection point for those fleeing violence in Aleppo and elsewhere. It has suffered sporadic bombardment by Syrian artillery positions and aircraft since 2012. Recently the bombing intensified, in response to a surprise offensive by armed opposition groups in Hama. Aircraft of the US-led coalition have also been carrying out attacks in Idleb Governorate.
Amnesty International has repeatedly called upon the UN Security Council to end the cycle of impunity and to refer the situation in Syria to the Prosecution of the International Criminal Court In February 2017, Russia and China vetoed a draft Security Council resolution to impose Chapter VII measures for the “unauthorized transfer of chemical weapons, or any use of chemical weapons by anyone in the Syrian Arab Republic”. This attack also serves as a bleak and unfortunate reminder to European countries meeting in Brussels to consider reconstruction in Syria that action towards justice and accountability must be central to any discussions about the country’s future.
لا يستطيع الإنسان، أكان مواطنا بسيطاً أو سياسياً أو إعلاميّاً، أن يكون حياديّاً أمام الشرّ. لا يمكننا ـ فقط لكوننا بشراً – أن نقوم بانتقاء المجازر وفرزها لتتناسب مع قناعاتنا وأيديولوجياتنا فنذمّ بعض القتلة ثم نصفح عن الآخرين. الأخلاق، بهذا المعنى، هي الغاية الأعلى للسياسة لأنها أساس العدالة وبدونها يفقد الجنس البشريّ (والدول والقوانين والأديان) طريقه الذي اختطّه لنفسه وينحطّ بالتالي إلى مرتبة المجرمين والقتلة الذين يبنون عروشهم وعصاباتهم وثرواتهم بسفك الدماء وحرق المدن وقهر الرجال واغتصاب النساء وذبح الأطفال. لقد اضطرت المجزرة الكيميائية الجديدة للنظام السوري في إدلب الكثير من السياسيين والإعلاميين والدول إلى اتخاذ مواقف، بدءاً من البيت الأبيض، الذي حاول تجاهل الأمر مدة 12 ساعة، ثم أطلق تصريحاً يلوم إدارة الرئيس السابق باراك أوباما ثم أعلن عن توجّه وزير خارجيته ريكس تيلرسون إلى موسكو… لإجراء مباحثات.
الموقف الحقيقي لإدارة ترامب، برغم قنابل التصريحات الدخانية، هو نقل مقاولة إدارة أوباما الباطنية لروسيا وإيران في سوريا، لتغدو عملياً مقاولة صريحة لموسكو ثمنها الحفاظ على رأس النظام السوري (والقبول بالتالي بالمجازر التي يرتكبها) ومحاولة إبعاد إيران عن المشهد. أما روسيا، فباعتبارها وصيّة على النظام السوري (ولظنّها ربما أنها أكثر قدرة منه على التلفيق)، فقد ناقضت رواية جيش بشار الأسد، الذي نفى «نفياً مطلقاً» قصف البلدة، وقالت إنه قصفها فعلاً ولكنّه أصاب ترسانة كيميائية للمعارضة، غير أن مخرجي القصة الروس لم يوضحوا لماذا قام النظام أيضاً بقصف المستشفيات التي نُقل إليها المدنيون للعلاج من الإصابات الكيميائية ثم لاحقت سيارات الإسعاف التي نقلت الجرحى وقتلتهم على معبر باب الهوى على الحدود التركية. تتكشف المواقف الأكثر هبوطاً أخلاقياً (فروسيا وأمريكا بلدان ينظران إلى العرب نظرتهما إلى عدو) حين نقرأ تصريحات بعض الدول العربية، وعلى رأسها مصر، التي «أدانت القصف العشوائي في إدلب السورية»، وهي إدانة لا معنى لها لأنها لا تدين أحداً بعينه، وتحوّل حدث الإبادة الجماعية بالسلاح الكيميائي إلى «قصف عشوائي» ربما كان سكان المريخ مسؤولين عنه. وفيما كان فلسطينيون في غزة ومتظاهرون في تركيا يعبرون عن تعاطفهم مع مدنيي خان شيخون، كان رئيس الوزراء اللبناني سعد الحريري يحاضر دول العالم عن الأعباء الهائلة التي يمثلها اللاجئون السوريون إلى بلاده. وفي الوقت نفسه كانت فصائل «اليسار» وبعض الأحزاب «القومية» في العالم العربي وإعلاميون محسوبون عليها تتوحّد مع فصائل الميليشيات الشيعية التابعة لإيران، ليس في تجاهل المجزرة فحسب، أو في تمويهها، كما فعلت أنظمة عربية، وليس في مساعدة الجاني على النجاة بجريمته، بل أيضاً بالتبرير له، بدعاوى من قبيل «لا يمكننا تبرئة أحد»، أو «نقف مع النظام العلماني الممانع»، بل إن بعضهم اعتبر قتل الأطفال والنساء مساهمة في «القضاء على الدواعش»، وكان عنوان إحدى هذه الصحف أكبر من خيال نظام الأسد نفسه حيث قالت: «الجيش السوري يصفّي عشرات الإرهابيين في مصنع كيميائي»، ولم تسأل الصحيفة نفسها كيف تواجد أكثر من عشرين طفلا في مصنع كيميائي للإرهابيين! رغم أشكال التقنّع والتمويه، ورغم رفع البعض رايات العلمانية والمقاومة والممانعة، ورفع البعض الآخر رايات الحسين، مضافاً إليها طرق التهرّب والتعمية وخلط الأوراق، فإن ما يجمع هؤلاء جميعاً، أنهم مناصرون للاستبداد بطريقة أو بأخرى رغم ادعاءاتهم الكاذبة وتناقضاتهم الشكلية مع الاستبداد والاحتلال والاستعمار، وأن لديهم احتقاراً شديداً للبشر. لا يمكن، بهذا المعنى، التلطّي وراء التنديد بمجازر إسرائيل في غزة، ومجازر ميانمار ضد المسلمين، وروسيا ضد الشيشان، وصربيا ضد البوسنة، ومجازر رواندا وجنوب السودان، إذا قبلت مجزرة رابعة العدوية، أو مجزرة خان شيخون، فكلّها جرائم ضد الإنسانية، والخيط الواصل بينها واضح.
Khan Sheikhun picks up the pieces after deadly nerve gas attack, politicians squabble, and jets still drop their bombs
Chemical attack victims are buried in a grave in Khan Sheikhun, Idlib, Syria (AFP) Link
Men heave soil from a trench on wasteland in Khan Sheikhun, working their spades tirelessly into the rocky debris to dig deep enough for their purpose. A green shawl is carefully lowered into the hole, and families cry for their dead. Another victim of Tuesday's chemical attack is laid to rest.
A day after the horror, this small town in northern Idlib is trying to deal with the terrible effects of the early morning release of a nerve agent, possibly Sarin - an odourless, tasteless killer 4,000 times more potent than chlorine developed by the Nazis - which killed up to 100 people and poisoned hundreds more.
As the international community squabbles over who or what caused the attack, Khan Sheikhun digs and mourns, all the while aware that another atrocity could be on its way. Syrian air force jets on Wednesday buzzed over the town of 50,000 people, who have seen this all before, and expect it all again.
The roads were full of people fleeing for their lives
Samer al-Ahmed, aid worker
Samer al-Ahmed, an aid worker for the Syrian Medical Society, told Middle East Eye that the town had suffered multiple chlorine attacks in March and early April. That meant hospitals were already running short of supplies to deal with chemical attacks.
"The hospitals were absolutely not ready for an attack, so we went to stock up so they could be prepared," Ahmad said, recounting his journey to a supply warehouse outside the town in the hours before Tuesday's attack.
Then the bombs struck.
"I heard about the attack and began running to my car, panicking and counting the medication I had to help people," he said. "When I got to the town, I saw rebel checkpoints had been left open to allow victims and medics to get out of the attack zone. The roads were full of people fleeing for their lives."
Then he arrived at a hospital as it was being evacuated towards the Turkish border. One hospital had already been hit in an air attack that day, and medics were not risking more.
"I saw a mother and five children, dead, just lying there. All those still alive had left. There was just death left behind."
Ahmed said he then drove to other hospitals to deliver the vital supplies he had gathered.
Mohammad Ibrahim, a photographer, told MEE he woke early on Tuesday to the sound of ambulances. "I was close to the attack. I ran to the site to find out what had happened, and then I went to the hospital about 150m from my house. There were many martyrs there already."
Men hold funeral prayers in Khan Sheikhun (AFP)
That an attack happened is beyond dispute. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Wednesday that eight people it treated near the border with Turkey had symptoms consistent with nerve agents like Sarin. The World Health Organisation said all signs indicated a nerve agent was used, adding further to evidence provided by doctors and activists on the day of the attack.
But the inevitable claims and counter claims of the various sides in the Syrian war threatened to boil over as Syria again denied involvement, and Russia and Iran both blamed "terrorists" for the atrocity. Britain, France, the US and other western nations have already blamed the government of Bashar al-Assad.
Ahmed, who has worked in Idlib for several years, batted aside Russian claims that rebels were responsible, Locals in Khan Sheikhun were heavily risk-averse and went to great lengths to ensure the Syrian government would have no reason to bomb them.
"Local opposition to large numbers of rebels in the city would make a chemical weapons factory being built in the city virtually impossible," he said.
"Locals forbid rebels coming into the city in large numbers, and to a hospital being built in the city, out of fear of being attacked by the regime."
Debris from an air attack on a hospital in Idlib, where gas attack victims were being treated (Reuters)
International outrage has coalesced at the UN, where Britain, France and the US drafted a security council resolution calling for an international investigation, and cooperation from the Syrian government, to seek the truth behind the tragedy.
They demanded Syria provide flight plans and logs for Tuesday, the names of all helicopter squadron commanders and provide access to air bases where investigators believe attacks using chemicals may have been launched.
The resolution expressed a "determination that those responsible must be held accountable". The US president, Donald Trump, called the attack an "affront to humanity".
But the resolution faces, as ever, opposition from Assad's most powerful ally Russia, which has its own take on the events of Tuesday.
This afternoon in the hours before a UN Security Council meeting, Russia again pushed its assertion - widely discredited by experts in chemical weapons - that Tuesday's attack was the result of a Syrian air strike on a rebel chemical weapons factory.
Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the resolution was "unacceptable" and based on "fake information".
"The US, France and Britain have once again planted - one cannot put it any other way - into the UN Security Council a draft resolution which has a completely anti-Syrian character," she said. "We do not believe it is expedient to pass a resolution on the chemical weapons attack in its present form."
Hasan Haj Ali, a commander in the Free Idlib Army rebel group, called the Russian statement a "lie" and said rebels did not have the capability to produce nerve gas.
"Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas," he told Reuters from northwestern Syria. "Likewise, all the civilians in the area know that there are no military positions there, or places for the manufacture (of weapons)."
And the attacks continued on Wednesday. As diplomats and politicians bickered in New York, warplanes mounted five air attacks on Khan Sheikhun, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
There was no gas, but their payloads would have the same effect on life. The war carries on, and the people of Khan Sheikhun await the next attack.
Men hold funeral prayers in Khan Sheikhun (AFP)
Debris from an air attack on a hospital in Idlib, where gas attack victims were being treated (Reuters)