France blames Bashar al-Assad for sarin attack on Syrian civilians

French intelligence services have concluded that forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad carried out a sarin nerve gas attack in northern Syria and that the Syrian president or his closest entourage ordered the strike, a declassified report showed.

The attack in the town of Khan Sheikhun on 4 April killed scores of people and prompted the US to launch a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base in response, its first direct assault on the Assad government in the conflict.

The six-page document - drawn up by France's military and foreign intelligence services - said it was able to reach its conclusion based on samples obtained from impact craters, and blood from a victim.

Among chemicals found in the samples were hexamine, a hallmark of sarin produced by the Syrian government. The substance was also found in samples obtained from victims who were killed in a 2013 sarin gas attack on Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus. 

"The French intelligence services consider that only Assad and some of his most influential entourage can give the order to use chemical weapons," the report said.

It also raised "major doubts" about the "accuracy, exhaustiveness and sincerity of the decommissioning of Syria's chemical weapons".

It added that "Syria has maintained a capacity to produce or stock Sarin, despite its commitment to destroy all stocks and capacities".

It also added that militant groups in the area did not have the capacity to develop and launch such an attack, and that the Islamic State group did operate in the region. 

Earlier this month, Turkey's health ministry said that it had found traces of Sarin gas in blood and urine samples from victims wounded in the Khan Sheikhun chemical attack.

The Turkish health minister, Recep Akdag, said isopropyl methylphosphonic acid, a chemical that sarin degrades into, was found in the blood and urine samples taken from the patients who arrived in Turkey.

Some 30 victims were brought across the border following the attack last Tuesday, and a number of them have died.

Post-mortem examinations on victims in Turkey shortly after the attack, monitored by the World Health Organisation, had concluded there was evidence of Sarin exposure.

According to CNN, US intelligence agencies had intercepted communications between the Syrian military and chemical weapons experts discussing plans for a chemical attack in Idlib province. 

Assad's claim to AFP news agency on 13 April that the attack was fabricated, was "not credible" given the mass flows of casualties in a short space of time arriving in Syrian and Turkish hospitals as well as the sheer quantity of online activity showing people with neurotoxic symptoms, said the report.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.