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It was a hot, windless summer night, just after 2 a.m., when a barrage of rockets slammed into the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta.
The explosions were small and sounded like duds, rescuers said, but within minutes as they went to check the bomb sites for casualties, they found people choking and shaking and foaming at the mouth. Soon, people were dying in droves.
The attack on eastern Ghouta and Moadamiya, two rebel-held suburbs of the Syrian capital, on Aug. 21, 2013, was the single deadliest episode of Syria’s 13-year civil war. At least 1,500 people died, rescue workers and those who dug the graves said in interviews. Men, women and children were smothered as they slept beneath open windows by a silent, odorless killer: Sarin gas, a nerve agent.
President Barack Obama had warned Syria that if it used chemical weapons like Sarin, which is prohibited under international conventions, it would be crossing a “red line.” But when the attacks occurred, no military or judicial action was taken. Neither President Bashar al-Assad nor his loyalists were held accountable.
Today, Mr. al-Assad, who has taken refuge in Russia since he was overthrown by a rebel offensive in December, faces charges of war crimes for the attack in a case being prepared in France, as do 22 of his associates. Yet, protected by the Russian government, he is unlikely ever to face justice.
Investigators and key witnesses point to the Sarin attacks, among several others during the war, as a signature of the cruelty of Mr. al-Assad’s government and his desperation to cling to power.
