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A handout
image from Syrian opposition's Shaam News Network shows
a couple mourning in
Ghouta on August 21, 2013 (SHAAM NEWS NETWORK/
Handout/AFP/File, Ammar
al-Arbini)
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WASHINGTON
— Sarin, the deadly nerve gas which the United States says was unleashed last
month by the Syrian regime in a Damascus suburb, was developed by Nazi
scientists in 1938.
Originally
conceived as a pesticide, sarin was used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's
regime to gas thousands of Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in 1988.
A cult also
used the odorless, paralyzing agent in two attacks in Japan in the 1990s.
US
Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday said tests on hair and blood samples
taken from the emergency workers who rushed to the scene of the Damascus attack
on August 21 had shown indications of sarin.
He said the
samples had been given to the US independently, outside of an outgoing UN
probe.
Washington
has squarely blamed the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad for the
attack, which it says killed more than 1,400 people including hundreds of
children.
Inhaled or
absorbed through the skin, the gas kills by crippling the respiratory center of
the central nervous system and paralyzes the muscles around the lungs.
The
combination results in death by suffocation, and sarin can contaminate food or
water supplies, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), which notes that antidotes exist.
"Sarin
is 26 times more deadly than cyanide gas. Just a pinprick-sized droplet will
kill a human," according to the World Health Organization.
Exposure
symptoms include nausea and violent headaches, blurred vision, drooling, muscle
convulsions, respiratory arrest and loss of consciousness, the CDC says.
Nerve
agents are generally quick-acting and require only simple chemical techniques
and inexpensive, readily available ingredients to manufacture.
Inhalation
of a high dose -- say 200 milligrams of sarin -- may cause death "within a
couple of minutes," with no time even for symptoms to develop, according
to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Exposure
through the skin takes longer to kill and the first symptoms may not occur for
half an hour, followed by a quick progression.
Even when
it does not kill, sarin's effects can cause permanent harm -- damaging a
victim's lungs, eyes and central nervous system.
Heavier
than air, the gas can linger in an area for up to six hours, depending on
weather conditions.
UN
inspectors, who have been in Syria investigating allegations of the regime's
use of chemical weapons, left the country on Saturday. The analysis of their
samples could take up to three weeks, UN experts have said.
The most
notorious sarin attack occurred in March 1988 in Halabja when as many as 5,000
Kurds were killed and 65,000 injured when the Iraqi military used a combination
of chemical agents that included sarin, mustard gas and possibly VX, a nerve
agent 10 times more powerful than sarin.
It is
thought to have been the worst-ever gas attack targeting civilians.
Sarin
killed 13 people and injured 6,000 others when the Aum Supreme Truth cult
released it in the Tokyo subway in March 1995. The cult also used the nerve
agent in an attack the year before in the Japanese city of Matsumoto, killing
seven.
The Syrian
regime is believed to control hundreds of tonnes of various chemical agents.
In addition
to blister agents known as vesicants such as mustard gas (yperite), Damascus is
thought to possess sarin and possibly VX.
The Syrian
regime also has the means to deliver its chemical agents, with Scud missiles,
artillery shells and aerial bombs, according to defense analysts.
The name
sarin comes from the chemists who discovered it by chance: Schrader, Ambros,
Ruediger et Van der Linde. The scientists had been trying to create stronger
pesticides but the formula was then taken up by the Nazi military for chemical
weapons.
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Sarin gas:
deadly nerve agent (AFP/Graphic)
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