Abdeltawwab Shahrour, a Syrian forensic expert who defected to Turkey last month, claims he has evidence confirming President Bashar Assad’s government had used chemical weapons near Aleppo in March.
“We have examined thousands of bodies of victims which the head of forensic medicine received in Aleppo,” Shahrour was quoted in the Arab News. “I thought that was cold murder. I contacted some of the rebels and documented these crimes."
To date, there has been little doubt that a chemical attack was perpetrated in Syria. However, both the government and the rebels have accused each other of orchestrating the chemical attack. Mr. Shahrour said that he had documents showing the government was behind the attack in Aleppo.
This development comes at a time when the US government seems to be more open than ever to a diplomatic solution, through which the Syrian government will hand over its entire arsenal of chemical weapons to the United Nations. Even as the possibility of a military strike has receded, a bipartisan group of Senators in the US Congress has begun drafting an alternate proposal to avert a military attack on Syria. In addition, France has begun to develop a plan that allows Syria to cede chemical weapons.
