Chemical weapons inspectors' security team fired on in Douma
April 18, 2018  23:44
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A UN security team doing reconnaissance at the site of an attack in the Syrian town of Douma has come under gunfire, the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has said, further delaying the arrival of chemical weapons inspectors.

The OPCW director general, Ahmet zmc , told a meeting at the organisations headquarters in The Hague on Wednesday that the security team had been forced to withdraw.

zmc said that when a reconnaissance team arrived at one site, a large crowd gathered and the team withdrew. At a second site the team came under small-arms fire and an explosive was detonated. The reconnaissance team returned to Damascus.

The delay in the inspectors arrival, 10 days after the attack, will raise fresh concerns over the relevance of the OPCW investigation and possible evidence-tampering.

The efforts to investigate the attack, which has been blamed on Bashar al-Assads government and sparked a joint operation by the US, Britain and France to bomb chemical weapons facilities near Damascus, has been repeatedly delayed despite Syrias claim to have established full control over Douma and the surrounding region.
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