The Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) issued its report (S/2295/2024) regarding the Syrian regime’s allegations that its forces were subjected to an attack using chemical substances by the “ISIS” organization in the Hama countryside at the end of 2017.
The report stated that the OPCW Technical Secretariat received a verbal note from the Syrian regime regarding two incidents. The first occurred in “Qalib al-Thawr” in the Salamiya countryside northeast of Hama on August 9, 2017, and the second in “al-Baleel” in “Soran” in the northern countryside of Hama on November 8, 2017.
The Syrian regime claimed in both incidents that its forces were targeted by “ISIS” with munitions containing unknown toxic gases, causing symptoms among a number of its soldiers, including suffocation, fainting, and vomiting.
The report added that the mission obtained information regarding the two incidents through correspondence with the Syrian regime, including verbal notes, in addition to holding meetings with the Syrian Technical Committee, conducting interviews with “witnesses and victims of the reported incidents,” field visits to relevant sites, and reviewing photos and documents collected from open sources.
Toxicity Report:
The mission’s report confirmed that the complaints and presentations by the injured, as described during the interviews, and the clinical signs reported in the medical records, do not match any specific drug toxicity and, therefore, cannot be linked to a specific category of chemical substances.
It also noted that the substance or category of substances reported in both incidents was not identified by the medical staff or in the subsequent forensic report provided by the Syrian regime. Despite all efforts to identify it, the reported substance remains unknown.
Based on the analysis of the information and documents provided by the medical personnel, the lack of an accurate description of the “unknown substance” reported in each incident, and the unavailability of environmental samples or samples from the victims’ clothing, the Fact-Finding Mission could not provide a toxicological assessment of the reported exposure.
Conclusions:
The Fact-Finding Mission’s report concluded that the information obtained and analyzed as a whole, according to the mission’s mandate, is insufficient to provide reasonable grounds for the Fact-Finding Mission to determine that toxic chemicals were used as weapons in the reported incidents that occurred in Qalib al-Thawr on August 9, 2017, and in al-Baleel on November 8, 2017, in Hama Governorate due to the following gaps:
- Lack of an accurate description of the “unknown” toxic gases reportedly used in the incidents.
- Unavailability of environmental samples to the Fact-Finding Mission.
- The clothing reportedly collected at the Salamiya hospital related to the alleged Qalib al-Thawr incident was not provided to the Fact-Finding Mission.
- The Syrian regime did not conduct any analyses on the clothing collected while it was stored at the SSRC research center in Barzah.
chemical_attack chemical_weapons FFM ISIL ISIS syria
