Article #1
Name: Grade: _____/15
Your Tasks:
· Read the article
· Annotate the article--highlight the main point(s) of the article and other details you found interesting within the article, also making marginal note to coincide with your highlighting.
· Mark at least two(2) words for which you do not know the definition. You will look up the definitions and write the words and their definitions at the end of the article in the space provided.
· Write a MINIMUM of four (4) full sentences reflecting on the article. Did you have any questions about the article? Did you find anything interesting? Did it make you think of something else/similar? Did anything strike you are strange, wrong, funny, etc.?
The situation in Syria after chemical attack: what we know
International outrage is mounting over a chemical attack that killed scores of civilians in a rebel-held town in northwest Syria on Tuesday morning.
Agence France-Presse's correspondent in the town of Khan Sheikhun saw lifeless bodies lying at a field hospital, which was itself hit in air strikes hours after the attack.
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that some victims appeared to show signs of exposure to "nerve agents."
What Happened?
Air strikes hit the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun around 7:00 a.m. (0400 GMT) on Tuesday, and residents reported finding entire families "dead in their beds."
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights first reported that 58 civilians had died, but the monitoring group later raised the death toll to a total of 72, including 20 children and more than a dozen women.
Late Thursday, AFP reported that at least 86 people, including 27 children, had died.
Another 160 were wounded, with local medics telling AFP they had treated cases of suffocation, convulsions, pinpoint pupils and rapid pulses.
What Was The Aftermath?
Residents were rushed to clinics inside the town and wider province, and some victims were taken across the border for treatment in Turkey.
Hours after the attack, as medics worked to treat the wounded in a hospital in Khan Sheikhun, two air strikes bombed the facility and partially destroyed it.
The gruesome footage emerging from the town was met with widespread shock, including in Brussels, Belgium, where world powers have gathered to raise funds to deal with Syria's crisis.
Who Was Behind It?
Syria's opposition has accused the government of Bashar al-Assad of carrying out the strike, and warned that the attack "calls into question" efforts to bring an end to the bloody conflict.
Rebel groups including Al-Qaeda's former affiliate said on Tuesday they would take "revenge" against the regime and its backers, calling on allied fighters "to ignite the fronts" across the country.
But Syria's army "categorically" denied the claims, saying it had never used chemical weapons "any time, anywhere, and will not do so in the future."
Both the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria and the U.N.'s chemical arms watchdog said they were investigating the attack to determine whether chemical substances were used.
How Has The World Reacted?
Washington, D.C., and London, England, have pointed the finger at Assad, and European Union diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said his regime bore "primary responsibility" for the attack.
Pope Francis on Wednesday called the attack an "unacceptable massacre."
But regime ally Moscow said the deaths were caused when a Syrian air strike hit a "terrorist warehouse" containing toxic materials.
When Have Chemical Weapons Been Used In Syria?
Syria's government officially joined the Chemical Weapons Convention and turned over its chemical arsenal in 2013, as part of a deal to avert U.S. military action.
That agreement came after hundreds of people, up to 1,429 according to a U.S. intelligence report, were killed in chemical weapons strikes allegedly carried out by Syrian troops near Damascus, Syria's capital.
But there have been repeated allegations of chemical weapons use by the government since, with a U.N.-led investigation pointing the finger at the regime for at least three chlorine attacks in 2014 and 2015.
The Islamic State extremist group was also found to have used mustard gas in a 2015 attack in Syria.
U.S. Launches Missile Strike Against Syria
On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a massive military strike against Syria in retaliation for the chemical attack, which used a sarin-like nerve agent. Washington blames the chemical attack on President Bashar al-Assad's government.
A White House official said 59 precision-guided missiles hit Shayrat Airfield in Syria, where the United States believes Tuesday's deadly attack was launched.The official had earlier given the number of missiles involved as 70.
The missiles were fired from the USS Porter and the USS Ross, which belong to the U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet and are located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.A U.S. official said the missiles targeted aircraft and runways at the base.
"This site was associated with the Syrian regime's chemical weapons program and directly linked to the horrific chemical weapons attack April 4," the White House official said.
"We assess with a high degree of confidence that the chemical weapons attack earlier this week was launched from this site by air assets under the command of the Assad regime," the official added. "We also assess, with a similar degree of confidence, that the Assad regime used a chemical nerve agent consistent with sarin in these attacks."
Inhaled or absorbed through the skin, sarin gas kills by crippling the respiratory center of the central nervous system and paralyzes the muscles around the lungs.
Sarin was used by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime to gas thousands of Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in Iraq in 1988.
The U.N. Security Council failed Thursday to reach agreement on demands for a thorough investigation of the chemical strike in northwestern Syria's Khan Sheikhun.
Vocabulary:
Reflection: (use separate paper)