Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on May 13 that it has strong evidence the Syrian government used chemical weapons on three rebel-held towns in northern Syria last month. The announcement reveals results of a two-week investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into the alleged chemical warfare. HRW asserts that evidence strongly indicates that the Syrian government dropped "barrel bombs" containing cylinders full of chlorine gas from helicopters into Keferzita, al-Teman'a and Telmans, three towns in northern Syria, between April 11 and 21. HRW also alleges that the attacks were targeted at civilians and that doctors treating the victims reported eleven deaths and approximately 500 injuries. A chemical warfare agents expert stated that information obtained through witness interviews and videos of the incidents "strongly support" the use of chlorine gas in the attacks. Nadim Houry, HRW's deputy director of its Middle East and North Africa division, condemned the use of chlorine gas as a weapon emphasizing that it is a violation of an international treaty that Syria joined last year. Houry recommended that the UN Security Council refer the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Syrian government is suspected of the attacks, in part because it is the only party to the unrest with access to the necessary aircraft.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced April 29 that it would begin a fact-finding mission into allegations of the use of chlorine gas in Syria. Although both rebel forces and the Syrian government acknowledge that the chemical weapon was used on the Syrian town of Kafr Zita, both factions deny responsibility for the attack. Chlorine was not a chemical Syria was required to give up, but the use of chlorine gas is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Syria is a signatory. Some western governments believe that Syria has failed to declare all the chemical weapons in its possession, including chlorine gas, and has retained some of its chemical stockpile.

The United States and Turkey have said they are following up on renewed accusations that the Syrian regime continues to use chemical weapons against civilians. If true, the government's use of such weapons would be a violation of its agreement with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and the Chemical Weapons Convention, both of which it signed last September. Over the past few months, members of the Syrian opposition, including the main umbrella group the Syrian National Coalition, have accused the regime of using chemical weapons, mainly in the suburbs of Damascus, in areas such as Jobar and Harasta. "There have been at least four such attacks in recent months, involving high doses of chlorine and pesticides," said Sinan Hatehet, director of the Coalition's media office. He added that although the attacks only killed around 15 people, the chemicals were primarily being used as a psychological weapon.

News accounts revealed in December that the US-funded glyphosate spraying in Colombia has been indefinitely suspended after presumed FARC guerillas shot down two fumigation planes—killing one US pilot. One plane came down Sept. 27, killing the pilot, whose name was not revealed. Reports were unclear where this incident took place. The Los Angeles Times on Dec. 17 named the village of Tarra, which is in Norte de Santander, along the Venezuelan border; Bogotá's El Tiempo implied it was in the southern jungle department of Putumayo. A second crop-duster was brought down Oct. 5, apparently at a location in Caquetá—also in the southern jungle. This prompted the US embassy to halt the spraying, according to anonymous sources. Neither the embassy nor the State Department would confirm the report.

A massacre at Adra, outside Damascus, is being attributed to the Nusra Front, which on Dec. 16 may have killed over 100 civilians after seizing the town, targetting Alawites, Druze, and Christians. Some civilians were reportedly "saved" by regime army troops, who stormed houses where they were being held. These claims are aggressively plied by the official media in countries that back the Assad regime (Russia Today, Voice of Russia, Tehran Times, Xinhua) and the "alternative" media in countries that oppose the Assad regime (Antiwar.com, Intifada Palestine—which is, very significantly, not based in Palestine, where Assad is actually very unpopular). The anti-Assad Linux Beach blog is skeptical about the claims, noting that the presumably more objective BBC News account put the death toll at 10, not the 100 attributed elsewhere to anonymous regime sources. Linux Beach also engages in the cyber-sleuth routine to argue that some photos supposedly taken by the jihadists of bodies they'd mutilated were actually recycled from other, unrelated atrocities (a trick the Assad-supporters are always accusing the mainstream media of). Linux Beach more astutely points out that the Adra claims come just as "the death toll from a 10-day Syrian regime air offensive on Aleppo rebels passed 400," in the words of AFP. Most have been killed by the regime's improvised "barrel-bombs," seemingly designed to win the maximum number of civilian casualties. ("Aleppo rebels" actually means rebel-held areas of the city; we may assume a high proportion of non-combatant deaths.) A Google News search for "Aleppo" brings up such mainstream US sources as the Washington Post, LA Times and CNN. Pretty predictable, eh?

Now here's a counterintuitive juxtaposition of news stories. The UN mission investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria stated that chemical agents may have been unleashed in five of seven cases investigated, occurring between March and August—not just the Aug. 21 attack at Ghouta. The other four cases that remain under investigation are named as Khan Assal, Jobar, Saraqeb and Ashrafiah Sahnaya. The mission unequivocally concluded that "chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in the Syrian Arab Republic." (NPR, LAT, Dec. 12) Simultaneously, the US and UK suspended all "non-lethal aid" to the Syrian rebels. The cut-off came days after a newly formed "Islamic Front" seized a base and arms cache from the Free Syrian Army at the Bab al-Hawa crossing on Syria's northwestern border with Turkey. The Islamic Front recently brought together six rebel factions, and seems loosely allied with ISIS, heretofore the major jihadist army.

The Israel Air Force was responsible for an Oct. 30 attack on a military base in the Syrian city of Latakia, according to a Reuters report that cited an opposition source. The target was named as a strategic missile battery near Ain Shikak village—and particularly a new shipment of Russian SA-8 surface-to-air missiles destined for Hezbollah. The Saudi news outlet Al-Arabiya said Israeli planes also struck an unnamed target in Damascus. Israel warplanes were also reported to have raided a missile warehouse near Latakia in July, and a military site near Damascus in May. Israel has not confirmed or denied any of the air-strikes. (Haaretz, Maan News Agency, Nov. 1)

A team of disarmament experts from the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Oct. 6 began overseeing the destruction by the Syrian government, and will verify that the process is correctly handled. The disarmament team will destroy the chemical weapons arsenal, its storage sites and the facilities which manufacture them in compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2118 (PDF8), which adopts and orders the Syrian government to comply with the Sept. 27 decision of the OPCW Executive Council. The decision requires Syria to identify the types, quantities and locations of all chemical weapons in its stockpile, as well as all chemical weapon storage facilities, production facilities, and research and development facilities, and provides a deadline of mid-2014 to complete their destruction.