Last October a whistleblower emerged from inside the OPCW alleging "irregularities" in its investigation of a suspected chemical weapons attack in the Syrian city of Douma.
The whistleblower was said to have supporting evidence in the form of text messages, emails and "suppressed" draft reports...
Blog archive: Syria
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11th December 2019
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25th November 2019For several weeks defenders of Syria's Assad regime have been chattering excitedly about the emergence of a whistleblower from inside the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The whistleblower – known by the pseudonym "Alex" – is said to have emails, text messages and "...
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21st November 2019An anonymous whistleblower who recently emerged from inside the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has spoken of "huge internal arguments" over one of its investigations in Syria. The whistleblower, known only as "Alex", says he was a member of the team investigating an...
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24th October 2019A former head of the chemical weapons watchdog OPCW has accused the organisation of "irregular behaviour" during its investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Syria last year, according to reports circulating on the internet. The remarks by José Bustani, director-general of the OPCW...
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17th October 2019An emeritus professor at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has angrily resigned from the board of a science journal after it declined to publish a paper he co-authored about a nerve agent attack in Syria. In his resignation letter, Theodore Postol, an MIT expert on...
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27th September 2019The United States has concluded that the Assad regime carried out a chemical attack in north-western Syria last May, secretary of state Mike Pompeo announced on Thursday. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he said: "This attack was part of the...
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14th August 2019Bristol University professor David Miller – a member of the "propaganda professors" group which defends the Assad regime against accusations of chemical weapons use in Syria and disputes Russia's use of a nerve agent against the Skripals in Britain – is behind a new campaign to sue the British...
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15th July 2019A new team to identify the perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria is now "fully operational", the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced last week. However, the creation of the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) has already caused a rift within...
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12th July 2019Before the war in Syria few people had heard of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and even fewer had any idea what it did. It was one of those obscure international bodies populated by anonymous technocrats, and obscurity suited it well. The general lack of interest meant it...
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13th June 2019After a lengthy silence the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has revealed some interesting new details about a controversial internal document that surfaced recently on the internet. The document in question was an “engineering assessment” relating to the OPCW’s...
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29th May 2019The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has now published a response to Russian and Syrian criticisms of the investigative work done by its Fact-Finding Mission (FFM). On 1 March, the FFM issued a report which found “reasonable grounds” for believing a toxic chemical...
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28th May 2019In an unusual move, Russia has sent the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons a detailed critique of its recent report on an alleged chemical attack in Syria. In March, after a lengthy investigation, the OPCW’s Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) issued a report which found “...
