Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes:

In the early hours of Aug. 21, 2013, Scott Cairns was struggling to sleep in his room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus. Cairns was part of a United Nations mission headed by the Swedish scientist Åke Sellström to investigate the regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons. The mission included representatives from the World Health Organization and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). As the head of the OPCW contingent, Cairns had cause to be apprehensive. Samples recovered from the lungs of a woman killed in an attack on Saraqeb four months earlier had confirmed that the regime was using the nerve agent sarin. A year earlier, on Aug. 20, 2012, then-U.S. President Barack Obama had issued a warning, declaring the use of chemical weapons a red line that would trigger a military response. The stakes for the regime were high, and it seemed determined to frustrate the mission.

At 2:30 a.m., Cairns noticed flashes on the hills to the north of Damascus. From his window, he could see an artillery barrage arc over the city and hit targets in the east. The attack went on for an hour. After a pause, at about 5 a.m., the attack resumed, this time hitting the southwest of the city. The bombardment lasted till dawn, and as visibility increased, Cairns observed that smoke from the attack hung low, engulfing the Ghouta neighborhood in the east.

Cairns had just witnessed the biggest chemical attack of the 21st century, the first major use of nerve agents since 1988, when Saddam Hussein killed up to 5,000 Kurds in Halabja with a mix of sarin, tabun, and VX. The first attack had hit the Zamalka and Ein Tarma neighborhoods of Eastern Ghouta, the second targeted Moadamiya, 12 miles to the west. First reports of the chemical attack appeared on social media from Ein Tarma at 2:45 a.m. and from Zamalka at 2:47 a.m. Within hours, hundreds of videos and images had been posted from 12 locations in the two suburbs showing terrified victims struggling to breathe, foaming at the mouth, vomiting, and convulsing.

Photos also emerged of the two types of munitions that were used in the attacks. Eastern Ghouta was hit by the 330mm “Volcano,” a Soviet Grad rocket modified with a chemical canister and stabilizing fins; Moadamiya was hit by the 140mm M-14 Soviet artillery rocket. Later that day, based on data from hospital and medical facilities, the Local Coordination Committees recorded 1,338 deaths; nine days later, a U.S. government assessment would put the death toll at 1,429, including 426 children.

The flashes Cairns had witnessed came from the Republican Guard base on Mount Qasioun, which is less than 2 miles from Syria’s main chemical weapons lab – Institute 3000 of the Scientific Studies and Research Center – located in Jamraya. The same compound also houses Branch 450, where chemical weapons are stored, mixed, and loaded before their deployment. On Aug. 18, U.S. signals and geospatial intelligence had already picked up activity that suggested preparation for a chemical attack. In the aftermath of the attack, the nearly 3,600 patients received at the three main hospitals showed no physical injuries but displayed symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure – runny noses, labored breathing, constricted pupils, blurred vision, disorientation, nausea, vomiting, debility, and loss of consciousness. German intelligence had meanwhile intercepted a call between a Hezbollah commander and the Iranian Embassy in which the former blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for losing his nerve and ordering the chemical attack.

In Washington, Obama convened an urgent meeting of his National Security Council to deliberate a response. The attack was a violation of international norms and a brazen breach of Obama’s red line. At a Situation Room meeting on Aug. 22, it was unanimously agreed that the U.S. should retaliate militarily. But it couldn’t risk action while the U.N. mission was still on the ground. In the following days, Obama and then-U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power failed to persuade U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to pull the inspectors from Damascus. Ban was adamant that they should be allowed to complete their mission. The regime, however, was refusing to let the inspectors in. When Sellström asked the regime’s main interlocutor, Brigadier General Hassan al Sharif, to let them at least speak to the survivors, he refused. “It’s of no use to you,” al Sharif said. “No one is coming out alive.” [Continue reading…]