Tag Archives: chemical weapons

America’s Kurdish Allies in Syria Drift Toward the Regime, Russia, and Iran

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 10 December 2017

Russian soldiers in Efrin, Syria, 1 May 2017 (source)

The American-led Coalition against the Islamic State (IS) partnered with the “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF), a political façade for the proscribed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as the ground force in Syria. The most ventilated problems with this partnership so far have been the strain it has put on relations with NATO ally Turkey, against which the PKK has run a terrorist-insurgency for more than thirty years, and the deep local suspicion of the PKK’s governing program that might yet reverse the gains against IS and open political space for other jihadists like al-Qaeda. Another of the problems is now gaining salience: the PKK’s long-term alliance with Bashar al-Asad’s regime and the states—Russia and Iran—that keep it alive. Continue reading →

Syria’s Regime Conducted the Khan Shaykhun Chemical Attack, United Nations Concludes

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 9 September 2017

United Nations Security Council (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

After the use of chemical weapons of mass destruction (CWMD) in the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun in April, American and French intelligence publicly assessed that the perpetrator was the regime of Bashar al-Asad, and President Donald Trump acted swiftly to punish the atrocity. The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic released a report on 6 September that ratifies these findings, concluding that Asad attacked the population of Khan Shaykhun with chemical weapons. Continue reading →

America Sanctions Operatives of the Islamic State’s Chemical Weapons Department

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 13 June 2017

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced financial sanctions against an individual involved in the “development” of chemical weapons of mass destruction (CWMD) for the Islamic State (IS) on 12 June. Simultaneously, the State Department labelled another individual involved in the development of CWMD for IS as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). These are the first sanctions of their kind. Continue reading →

France Presents Evidence Assad Committed Chemical Weapons Atrocity

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 26 April 2017

The French government has released its assessment of the 4 April chemical weapons attack in Syria, and “independently and categorically confirms that sarin was used”. France “deployed the required resources to obtain its own samples,” the report notes, and “collected biomedical and environmental samples and munitions and pieces of munitions” from this attack site and several prior. Continue reading →

America Officially Blames Assad for the Chemical Attack in Khan Shaykhun

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 12 April 2017

Aftermath of the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack (source)

The United States’ cruise missile strikes in Syria in the early hours of 7 April devastated the Shayrat airbase from which, U.S. intelligence assesses, the regime of Bashar al-Assad launched the nerve agent attack on Khan Shaykhun on 4 April. The U.S. has now released its fuller assessment of the chemical attack, which includes a record of Assad’s routine use of chemical munitions since 2013. This comes amid ongoing gridlock at the United Nations Security Council, where, during a volatile session yesterday, Russia’s deputy representative, Vladimir Safronkov, accused Britain supporting the Islamic State—before vetoing the proposed resolution to have an international investigation into this latest chemical attack, a fairly strong indication that Moscow knows its client regime in Syria would be found guilty. This is the eighth time Russia has used its veto to shield Assad, though this time it was notable that China abstained, rather than join Russia in a double-veto.
Continue reading →

Chemical Weapons, Syria, and Trump

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 9 April 2017

President Donald Trump launches cruise missiles against the Syrian regime in retribution for its chemical attack (image source)

This week, the regime of Bashar al-Assad struck the town of Khan Shaykhun with chemical weapons of mass destruction (CWMD), massacring more than eighty people. The atrocity took place around dawn local time on 4 April. At 20:40 Eastern Standard Time on 6 April (2:40 on 7 April, British time; 4:40 on 7 April, Syrian time), President Donald Trump ordered a barrage of cruise missiles against the Shayrat Airbase from which the Khan Shaykhun attack had been launched.  Continue reading →

Kuwaiti Islamic State Military Official Killed in Syria

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 1, 2017

abdul-al-taresh-abu-jandal-al-kuwaiti-2

In September 2014, Kuwait undertook a series of raids against terrorists loyal to the Islamic State (IS). It was found by authorities that one of the “great influence[s]” over the jihadi-Salafists in Kuwait was Abdulmuhsin al-Taresh (Abu Jandal al-Kuwaiti). Al-Taresh was an important propagandist-recruiter for IS at this time, and would later become a senior military official. He was killed near IS’s Syrian capital, Raqqa, by the U.S.-led Coalition at the end of December. Continue reading →

International Taboo on Chemical Weapons Frays As U.S. Steps Back

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 13, 2017

Yesterday, the United States Treasury Department imposed sanctions on eighteen senior officials in the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The sanctions come in response to reports in August and October 2016 by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the United Nations investigative body, which found that found “the Syrian government, specifically the Syrian Arab Air Force, was responsible for three chlorine gas attacks in Talmenes on April 21, 2014, and in Qmenas and Sarmin on March 16, 2015.” This is three years after the Assad regime was spared punitive military strikes for its use of chemical weapons under a Russian-orchestrated “deal” that ostensibly disarmed Assad of such weapons. Continue reading →

Defeating the Islamic State for Good

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Originally published at The Henry Jackson Society

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 2, 2016

Islamic State fortifications in Deir Ezzor (from an IS video, 11 July 2016)

The Islamic State (IS) is nominally under attack now in its twin capitals, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. This is necessary task, of course, but, as I’ve written repeatedly over the last few months, clearing IS from its urban centres is not sufficient. IS lost its overt urban holdings once before and nonetheless rebuilt in the deserts between 2008 and 2013, rising again to seize increasingly-large tracts of territory that were eventually declared a caliphate. IS was able to do this because of the success of its long-term method of war-making, and political changes in Baghdad—toward greater sectarianism and authoritarianism—that gave it more space to manoeuvre. The flaws in the strategy and partners the U.S.-led international Coalition have chosen to eliminate IS are creating a situation in which what will be called “victory” is really the resetting of the cycle. More evidence of this has recently come to the fore. Continue reading →

Coalition Prepares the Ground for Mosul Offensive

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By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on October 9, 2016

U.S.-led Coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State (AFP)

Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS) is an activist group working from within the capital of the Islamic State (or so-called capital of the so-called Islamic State, if you prefer) to bring news to the outside world of the horrors therein. For this they have paid a heavy price. On 22 September, RBSS published a list on Twitter of eighteen Islamic State (IS) operatives who had been killed by the U.S.-led Coalition between 20 August and 21 September 2016. This list, presented below with some notes and context, shows the preparations being made for the rapidly-approaching offensive on IS’s Iraqi capital. Continue reading →