US: No doubt Syria used chemical weapons
The use of chemical weapons by Syrian in the Syrian Civil War that is currently in progress is one more example of the lengths that Dictators will go to maintain their control. Bashar al-Assad was born 11 September 1965) is the 19th and current President of Syria, holding the office since 17 July 2000. He is also commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces, General Secretary of the ruling Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party and Regional Secretary of the party’s branch in Syria. He is a son of Hafez al-Assad, who was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000. Raised in Damascus, Assad graduated from the medical school of Damascus University in 1988, and started to work as a doctor in the Syrian Army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies at the Western Eye Hospital in London, specializing in ophthalmology. In 1994, after his elder brother Bassel died in a car crash, Bashar was recalled to Syria to take over Bassel’s role as heir apparent. He entered the military academy, taking charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998. On 10 July 2000, Assad was elected as President, succeeding his father, who died in office a month prior. In the 2000 and subsequently in the 2007 election, he received 99% and 97% of the votes. During the Arab spring, Bashar al-Assad commented that his country was stable and that he had the pulse of the people. however, not everything was as good as al-Assad portrayed it. The civic unrest began with small numbers of people asking for justice in punishing those responsible for a string of brutal tortures and deaths associated with al-Assad’s security services. The early protests and subsequent torture of those protesters by al-Assad’s security services set in motion a chain of events that catapulted the country to the current civil war.
According to certain sources that suggest that on April 4, 2017, a Syrian Airforce warplane attacked Khan Sheikhoun, a town in the northwestern sector of Idlib, with a nerve agent, killing at least 92 people, 30 of them children. The death toll likely makes this the deadliest chemical attack since an attack killed hundreds in Ghouta, near Damascus, in August 2013. The Khan Sheikhoun attack sparked international outrage, but the attack on Khan Sheikhoun was not the only recent chemical attack by the Syrian government. Three developments since late 2016 show that the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons has become widespread and systematic: Airforce bombers appear to have dropped bombs with nerve agents on at least four occasions since December 12, including in Khan Sheikhoun; The government’s use of helicopter-dropped chlorine-filled munitions has become more systematic; Government or pro-government ground forces have started using improvised ground-launched munitions containing chlorine. In at least some of the attacks, the intention appears to have been to inflict severe suffering on the civilian population, which would amount to crimes against humanity.
I have learned that once again when the rule of a tyrant is threatened, he or she will stop it nothing to ensure his or her survival. the death of so manny people at the hands of another middle-eastern dictator is but one more example of the region’s struggle for a stable political form of government.