Russia: Syrian Militants Used Sarin Nerve Gas

     Sarin, or GB, is an organophosphorus compound with the formula [(CH3)2CHO]CH3P(O)F. It is a colorless, odorless liquid, used as a chemical weapon owing to its extremely potency as a nerve agent. It has been classified as a chemical weapon owing to its extreme potency as a nerve agent. It has been classified as a weapon of mass of destruction UN Resolution. Production and stockpiling of sarin was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, and it is classified as a Schedule 1 substance. Reports of chemical-weapons attacks have hovered like a cloud over the bloody conflict in Syria for at least half a year, with both the Syrian opposition and the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad accusing the other of using poison gas in battle. After this weekend, international concern and confusion over the threat posed by chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war only deepened following a U.N. investigator's claim that she had strong, concrete suspicions, the Syrian rebels deployed sarin gas in a recent attack.
                      Within a few seconds of sarin-gas exposure, victims will start to experience eye pain, drooling, weakness, vomiting, diarrhea and irregular heart rates. Clothing from victims, exposed to the gas will continue to release toxic vapors for 30 minutes, causing more people to come into contact with it. For those exposed to the liquid form of sarin, symptoms can occur anytime from a few minutes to 18 hours after consumption. If exposed to a large amount of sarin in either gas or liquid form, victims can experience more severe and painful symptoms such as convulsions, paralysis, loss of respiratory functions and even death.
                     But sarin gas truly grabbed global attention when in 1995, far from the sectarian war zones of the Middle was released into the Tokyo subway system by an obscure spiritualist cult known as the Aum Shinrikyo, people died from exposure, while hundreds more were injured.
                      Sarin itself reacts easily with water and so it breaks down when it meets rain, moisture in the air or sweat. The agent's fragility in water led hospital staff in Syria to use hoses to drench rooms where they received victims after chemical attacks. For the same reason, sarin does not hang around for long in the environment, or in people. Laboratories can test for the substance, but more often will find breakdown products. The first substance sarin degrades into is isopropyl methylphosphonic acid (IMPA), which is generally regarded as proof positive for sarin. But IMPA itself breaks down, into lethylphosphonic acid (MPA).  Finding MPA in blood or urine is not a smoking gun for sarin, it can come from other organophosphates. The UN inspectors found concrete evidnece that sarin was used with lethal effect in Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus on 21 August. The team plans to go back soon, to visit Khan al-Assal, Sheik Maqsood and Saraqueb, before submitting a final report.