Syrian regime used poisonous gas under Iranian, Russian supervision: dissident officer

A Syrian dissident military officer, Capt. Abdul Salam Ahmed Abdul Razek, said the Syrian regime is using internationally prohibited poisonous gas against protestors under the supervision of both Iran and Russia.

“The Syrian army used nerve gas to facilitate the invasion of Homs and was planning to do the same in Jebel al-Zawia and al-Zabadani,” Abdul Razek told Al Arabiya.

According to Abdul Razek, who worked in the Syrian army’s Chemical Warfare Division, the army has in its possession large quantities of a poisonous asphyxiating substance that is banned internationally.

Mass extermination

“A little amount of this is enough to carry out a mass extermination,” he said.

The gases, Abdul Razek added, are used under the supervision of both Russia and Iran.

“Russia is the source of those gases and Iran provides advice on how, when, and where they are to be used,” he said.

Abdul Razek explained that prohibited gases were made available only for the Fourth Battalion of the Syrian army and the Presidential Guard.

The use of those gases and other brutal measures taken against civilians, Abdul Razek said, demonstrate that the Syrian army has one purpose in mind: killing the Syrian people.

“For example, what happened in Rif Dimashq was genocide.”

This, he added, is what drives many officers to defect.

“Now security forces are very alert and they watch closely anyone suspected of not being loyal to the regime,” Abdul Razek said. “Some officers have not been given one day off for the past few months for fear they would defect.”

Other officers, he said, were interrogated just for watching satellite channels that cover the ongoing protests in Syria, such as Al Arabiya.

Abdul Razek said that his plight has been made easier because of the help offered to him by the Free Syrian Army.

“They transferred me safely from Damascus to the Syrian borders.”

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)