Samples from Syria's Idlib test positive for sarin gas: Chemical weapons organization

Samples taken from a suspected poison gas site in Syria's northern Idlib governorate tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on April 13.

"U.K. scientists have analyzed samples taken from Khan Sheikhoun. These have tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance," the delegation said during a special session on Syria at the OPCW in The Hague on April 13, Reuters reported. 

The U.K. result confirmed earlier testing by Turkish authorities that concluded that sarin had been used for the first time on a large scale in Syria's civil war since 2013.

Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdağ said April 11 that laboratory results have shown that sarin gas was definitely used in the attack on Syria's Idlib on April 4 that killed at least 87 civilians.

"As a result of blood and urine samples taken from the victims subjected to the use of chemical war material in Idlib, Isopropyl methylphosphonic acid, the metabolite of sarin gas, was confirmed," Akdağ said.

Meanwhile, sources talking to Reuters said that OPCW investigators have gone to Turkey to collect samples as part of an inquiry into the alleged chemical weapons.

The fact-finding mission was sent by the OPCW in The Hague to gather bio-metric samples and interview survivors, sources told Reuters on April 13.

The toxic gas attack on April 4, which killed scores of people including children, prompted a U.S. cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base and widened a rift between the United States and Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his conflict with rebels and militants fighting to oust him.

The OPCW mission will...