Syrian enemies demand inquiry into "chemical" attack

By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Both sides in Syria's conflict on Wednesday demanded an international inquiry into a deadly attack they each cite as evidence that the other has used chemical weapons.

The deaths of 26 people in a rocket attack on a northern town on Tuesday have become the latest focus of a propaganda war between President Bashar al-Assad's supporters and opponents, who accuse each other of firing a missile laden with chemicals.

The United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in Syria, took contrasting views of the strike on Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo, which, if confirmed, would be the first use of chemical weapons in the two-year-old conflict.

Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Damascus who left Syria more than a year ago, said his government had no evidence so far to substantiate reports that chemical weapons munitions had been used in Syria on Tuesday.

"But I want to underline that we are looking very carefully at these reports," he added, in testimony in Washington to a U.S. House of Representatives hearing on the crisis in Syria.

Ford also said there would be consequences for Syria's government if it were found to be using chemical weapons, but would not discuss what those would be.

Washington has so far shunned direct military intervention in Syria, although it says Assad must be removed from power after 43 years of his family's iron rule in the major Arab and two years after the start of an uprising against it.

Rebels might latch onto any suspicions of chemical weapons use to bolster a case for Western military intervention, although not all of Assad's opponents favor this.

Russia, citing information from the Damascus government, has accused rebels of carrying out a chemical strike.

Syria's restrictions on independent media and foreign aid groups make it hard to verify what happened, but survivors interviewed in hospitals complained of breathing difficulties.

The opposition Syrian National Coalition said it wanted an international investigation into alleged chemical attacks on Tuesday in both Khan al-Assal and Otaiba, a town near the capital Damascus.

"The Coalition would like all parties and individuals involved in this reprehensible crime to be brought to justice," it said in a statement.

Syria's Foreign Ministry has asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to set up an independent, neutral specialist technical team "to investigate the use of chemical weapons by the terrorists in Khan al-Assal", state television reported.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad had said on Tuesday that officials would test soil and rocket debris in Khan al-Assal and report their findings to the "relevant bodies".

HARD EVIDENCE SCARCE

The World Health Organization said it would send medical supplies to Aleppo on Wednesday but could not verify if chemical agents had been used. Experts contracted by the U.N. agency will visit Aleppo health facilities to identify immediate health needs and provide support for treatment of toxins, it said.

Syria's military has turned increasingly heavy weapons on those opposing Assad's rule, using firearms, then tanks, artillery, aircraft and long-range missiles, but it has denied it would use chemical weapons, if it had them, on its own people.

The most notorious chemical weapons attack in the Middle East was in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja, where some 5,000 people died in a strike ordered 25 years ago by then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Colonial power Britain had earlier used poison gas to quell revolts in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

But there has been little hard evidence that Tuesday's attacks involved chemical munitions, some weapons experts say.

David Friedman, a former specialist on weapons of mass destruction with Israel's Defense Ministry, said he did not believe chemical weapons had been used in the Khan al-Assal attack, citing witness testimony and television footage.

Some of those hospitalized after the attack told a Reuters photographer of a strong smell of chlorine in the air and that many victims had fallen down dead after the blast.

Friedman said a rocket might have hit chemicals stored in the area. "As for the smell of chlorine, this could have been due to the indirect explosion of something containing industrial chemicals," he argued, saying this was common in urban combat.

At least 70,000 people have been killed by conventional weapons in Syria's two-year-old conflict, but conflicting claims about chemical weapons are often bandied about.

The United States and Israel fret that Syria's presumed chemical arsenal might fall into the hands of Syrian Islamist militants fighting Assad, or be diverted to his Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah allies - fierce foes of the Jewish state.

The Syrian state news agency SANA said the government had sent two letters to the United Nations in the past voicing fears that hostile powers may supply chemical weapons to "terrorists" to fabricate claims that the government is using such arms.

The Information Ministry has also said al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front rebels had previously seized a private factory in eastern Aleppo that had tonnes of poisonous chlorine material.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans and Oliver Holmes in Beirut, and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Elderly Iraqi tells inquiry son was tortured

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) - An elderly Iraqi father described seeing signs of torture on his son's body as he testified on Monday at a London public inquiry into allegations of atrocities by British troops in 2004.

Mizal Karim Al-Sweady was the first of 60 Iraqi witnesses who will give evidence to the Al-Sweady inquiry into the disputed circumstances of 28 deaths during or after a battle at the Danny Boy checkpoint in southern Iraq.

The inquiry is named after Al-Sweady's son Hamid, 19, one of a group of Iraqi men allegedly captured alive and killed in detention. The military denies the allegations.

Dressed in a black-and-white keffiyeh and long brown robe over a grey suit, the elderly father-of-17 arrived carrying a framed photograph of Hamid alive. Before he began answering questions, he carried the photo to the inquiry chairman, retired judge Thayne Forbes, and the two men shook hands.

Moments later, as part of his evidence, Al-Sweady was shown a gruesome photograph of Hamid's corpse and asked to describe injuries he says he saw on his body shortly after his death.

Speaking through an interpreter, Al-Sweady said he had cleaned his son's body before burial and had seen wire marks around his neck, bruises on his chest, a broken jaw, a bullet wound in the neck and one in the leg.

"I turned my son's body around with my hand. I confirmed the injuries right after the doctor did," he said.

It is the second major British public inquiry into military conduct in Iraq. The costly and long-running inquiries have helped keep alive a public debate about why Britain got involved in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and how the war was conducted.

Iraqi witnesses allege British soldiers captured a number of men during the battle at Danny Boy, about 5 km (3 miles) from the town of Majar al-Kabir, and took them to Camp Abu Naji base where some were murdered and mutilated and others tortured.

The military denies any unlawful killings or ill-treatment in the aftermath of the battle on May 14, 2004.

There is no agreement about the exact number or identities of the dead and whether they died fighting or in detention.

"EYES PLUCKED OUT"

Al-Sweady was asked by a lawyer for the military whether his son Hamid was a supporter of anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr or a member of his Mehdi Army militia. He said no to both.

The elderly father's evidence about the events of May 14-15, 2004, was challenged by several lawyers who noted discrepancies between three witness statements he gave in 2004 and 2010.

He was asked to elaborate on his account of seeing several bodies with eyes plucked out and tongues and noses cut off at the hospital where he collected his son's body. Pressed to be specific, he told the inquiry he had seen one body with a broken-up nose and one with eyes plucked out.

Al-Sweady denied changing his account over time, suggesting that his statements had not been written down correctly by British military police who had investigated the episode.

The Al-Sweady inquiry, ordered by the British government in 2009, has already cost 16 million pounds in its pre-hearings phase.

The hearings, expected to last about a year, will involve flying 15 Iraqi witnesses to London and another 45 to Beirut where they will give evidence by video-link from the British embassy. Some 200 British military witnesses will also testify.

An earlier inquiry, into the death of hotel receptionist Baha Mousa in British custody in Basra in 2003, reported in 2011 that he had died after suffering "an appalling episode of serious gratuitous violence" at the hands of British troops.

(Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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