Mustard gas was used during summer fighting in Syria, but it was not clear by whom, the global chemical weapons watchdog said on Thursday, while militants seized a key town from regime forces.
The deadly gas was used in the flashpoint town of Marea in the northern province of Aleppo on Aug. 21, a source from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said.
“We have determined the facts, but we have not determined who was responsible,” the source said.
Photo: AFP
Allegations that militants have been using chemical arms have been increasing in recent months in both Iraq and Syria.
Syrian rebels and aid groups said that at the end of August dozens of people were affected by a chemical attack on Marea, where moderate opposition rebels and militants from the Islamic State group were battling.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it had treated four civilians from one family. Patients at an MSF hospital in Aleppo said they saw a “yellow gas” when a mortar round hit their house.
Meanwhile, bolstered by a Russian air campaign launched in September, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been fighting to retake territory lost to rebels in the nation’s brutal four-year war, but have failed to make significant gains.
On Thursday a militant faction, Jund al-Aqsa, was reported to have seized the last government-held town on the main highway between Syria’s second city Aleppo to the north and the city of Hama to the south.
They “seized full control of the town of Morek after a fierce offensive,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.
Jund al-Aqsa boasted of the victory in Morek on its Twitter account, but a Syrian security source insisted fighting was ongoing and denied a major setback.
Morek has changed hands several times in the conflict, with government troops last retaking it in October last year.
Last month, Syrian troops launched a major fightback in Hama province with Russian air support, with the main Aleppo highway a main objective.
It was one of a number of counteroffensives the Damascus regime has launched since Moscow intervened.
Regime forces scored a rare win on Wednesday, recapturing from Islamic State an alternative route further east that provides the government’s sole link to neighborhoods of Aleppo under its control.
Advancing Islamic State forces had severed the road last month, cutting off food and supplies to tens of thousands of civilians in the west of Aleppo. For the first time since Islamic State had cut the road, trucks of fruits and vegetables arrived in regime-held neighborhoods of the city, residents said.
Islamic State has continued advancing in various parts of Syria, despite the Russian airstrikes and more than a year of air raids targeting the group by a US-led coalition.
On Thursday, the observatory said that at least 22 civilians were killed along with several Islamic State fighters in air raids on the Syrian town of Bukamal, near the Iraqi border, but did not say which nation carried out the strikes.
Russia said its air force carried out strikes near the Islamic State-held ancient city of Palmyra, bringing to 263 the number of targets Russian jets have hit in the past two days.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite