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UN probe says Syrian government launched April sarin attack

Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian General Staff attends a briefing in the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017, backdropped by a screen showing Russian navy's Admiral Essen frigate launching a cruise missile at the Islamic state in Syria. The commander of the Russian forces in Syria Sergei Surovikin says Russian jets have carried out more than 2,600 airstrikes in the past two weeks to support the government's efforts to drive Islamic State militants from an eastern city. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)
Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian General Staff attends a briefing in the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017, backdropped by a screen showing Russian navy's Admiral Essen frigate launching a cruise missile at the Islamic state in Syria. The commander of the Russian forces in Syria Sergei Surovikin says Russian jets have carried out more than 2,600 airstrikes in the past two weeks to support the government's efforts to drive Islamic State militants from an eastern city. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin) Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian General Staff attends a briefing in the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017, backdropped by a screen showing Russian navy's Admiral Essen frigate launching a cruise missile at the Islamic state in Syria. The commander of the Russian forces in Syria Sergei Surovikin says Russian jets have carried out more than 2,600 airstrikes in the past two weeks to support the government's efforts to drive Islamic State militants from an eastern city. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin)

By Associated Press 3 min read

GENEVA (AP) – U.N.-mandated investigators said Wednesday that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s air force conducted a sarin-gas attack in the spring that killed at least 83 civilians and sparked a retaliatory U.S. strike.

The investigators also appealed to the U.S.-led coalition to better protect civilians as it strikes at Islamic State militants in the east.

The latest report by the Commission of Inquiry on Syria offers among the strongest evidence yet of allegations that Assad’s forces conducted the April 4 attack on Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib province. The United States quickly blamed the Syrian government and launched a punitive strike on Shayrat air base, where the report says the Sukhoi-22 plane took off.

Syrian government officials have denied responsibility, and said last month that they would allow in U.N. teams to investigate.

“We have analyzed all the other interpretations” of who might have conducted the attack, commission chairman Paulo Pinheiro said at a Geneva news conference. “It is our task to verify these allegations, and we concluded … that this attack was perpetrated by the Syrian air force.”