Thread: New claims of Syria atrocities as UN weapons experts inspect 'chemical weapons'

New claims of Syria atrocities as UN weapons experts inspect 'chemical weapons' attack sites

• From POST WIRE SERVICES
• Last Updated: 2:51 PM, August 28, 2013
• Posted: 2:42 PM, August 28, 2013

Amer Alfaj / Demotix
A victim is rushed to Bab al-Hawa border hospital for suspected Napalm or White Phosphorous burns.

ISTANBUL -- Syria's opposition coalition says President Bashar al-Assad's forces had dropped phosphorus bombs and napalm on civilians in rural Aleppo on Monday, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens.

The alleged attack occurred as the United States and its European and Middle Eastern partners honed plans to punish Assad for a major poison gas attack last week on the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, that killed hundreds of civilians.

Video footage uploaded on the Internet, apparently of Monday's attack, showed doctors frantically smearing white cream on the reddened skin of several screaming people, many of them young boys.

Amer Alfaj / Demotix
"Assad's military aircraft have hit populated areas with the internationally prohibited phosphorus bombs and napalm," the opposition coalition said in a statement.

It was not possible to independently confirm the report. There have been previous unconfirmed reports of the use of phosphorus bombs by Assad's forces during Syria's conflict, now in its third year.

Meanwhile, U.N. chemical weapons experts on Wednesday took biological samples from several victims of last week's purported poison gas attack east of Damascus, activists said, as Western powers laid the groundwork for a possible punitive military strike and the U.N. chief pleaded for more time for diplomacy.

EPA
UN inspectors collecting samples from a site that was allegedly hit by a chemical gas weapon, in Moadamiyeh suburb, Damascus.

Fear of a dramatic escalation in the two-and-a-half-year conflict prompted some 6,000 Syrians to flee into Lebanon over a 24-hour period, or more than six times the average daily flow.

A jittery Israel ordered a special call-up of reserve troops Wednesday as residents lined up at gas-mask distribution centers, preparing for possible hostilities with Syria.

A week after the purported chemical attack on rebel-held areas outside Damascus, momentum has been building for a possible strike by the U.S. and its allies against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

AP
Members of UN investigation team speak in Damascus countryside of Zamalka, Syria.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon however said that no action should be taken until the U.N. chemical weapons inspectors finish their investigation.

"Let them conclude ... their work for four days and then we will have to analyze scientifically" their findings and send a report to the U.N. Security Council, he said Wednesday from The Hague. The U.N. said the analysis would be done "as quickly as possible."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/attacks_claims_inspect_atrocities_hmasA4FWl5vDUrte SXbJIM

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