Imej dari ugrasu.ru (Image from ugrasu.ru – think IN pictures @1WORLDCommunity)
SitiWanMahani - Ujian Makmal dalam pejalanannya untuk menentukan sama ada sarin telah digunakan serangan kimia di Syria. Analisis dijalankan untuk menentukan sama ada sarin telah digunakan dalam serangan kimia Syria bulan lepas. Ujian makmal, yang akan mengambil masa kira-kira 2 minggu, sedang dalam pejalanan dengan sokongan PBB. Analisis mematuhi piawaian saintifik, FM Rusia menyatakan.
“Sebagaimana Lakhdar Brahimi berkata, terdapat piawaian saintifik pakar dipandu oleh [UN],” kata Menteri Luar Rusia Sergey Lavrov kepada wartawan hari Jumaat selepas sarapan bekerja dengan utusan PBB-Liga Arab bagi Syria.
Ahli kimia daripada Pertubuhan bagi Larangan Senjata Kimia menggunakan sampel yang diambil dari tapak serangan kimia diadakan di luar ibu negara Syria Damsyik pada 21 Ogos.
Pada sidang kemuncak G20 di St Petersburg, pemimpin Britain, Perancis, dan Amerika Syarikat cuba untuk memberi tekanan kepada Presiden Rusia Vladimir Putin mengenai kedudukan Moscow yang menyerang.
Sekutu NATO telah menghasilkan bukti mereka sendiri bahawa ejen maut digunakan di Syria adalah gas saraf sarin. Perdana Menteri Britain, David Cameron telah menyatakan bahawa sampel pakaian dan tanah yang diambil dari Syria diuji positif bagi gas sarin. Kesimpulan UK adalah berdasarkan keputusan yang diperolehi oleh ahli-ahli sains di Porton Down di Wiltshire, England.
“Kami yakin dan tetap yakin bahawa Assad telah bertanggungjawab,” kata Cameron pada hari Khamis. Perisikan British telah membuat kesimpulan bahawa pasukan pemberontak tidak mempunyai keupayaan untuk mengadakan serangan kimia.
Setiausaha Negara Amerika Syarikat John Kerry kepada media Amerika Syarikat Ahad lalu bahawa sampel yang dikumpul oleh responden pertama selepas serangan kimia di pinggir bandar Damsyik yang diuji positif bagi ejen saraf sarin. Kerry membuat 9 penampilan TV dalam usaha untuk mendapatkan sokongan orang ramai untuk campur tangan ketenteraan di Syria.
Lab tests Underway to Determine if Sarin was used
in Syria Chemical Attack . . .
An analysis is underway to determine if sarin was used in Syria's chemical attack last month. The lab tests, which will take about two weeks, are being conducted with UN support. The analysis complies with scientific standards, Russia’s FM stated.
“As Lakhdar Brahimi said, there are scientific standards the [UN] experts are guided by,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists Friday after a working breakfast with the UN-Arab League envoy for Syria.
Chemists from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons are using samples taken from the site of the chemical attack staged outside the Syrian capital of Damascus on August 21.
At the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, leaders of Britain, France, and the US attempted to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding Moscow’s position on the attack.
NATO allies have produced evidence of their own that the lethal agent used in Syria was sarin nerve gas. British Prime Minister David Cameron has stated that clothing and soil samples taken from Syria tested positive for sarin gas. The UK conclusion is based on results obtained by scientists at Porton Down in Wiltshire, England.
“We were confident and remain confident that Assad was responsible,” Cameron said on Thursday. British intelligence has concluded that rebel forces have no capacity to stage a chemical attack.
US Secretary of State John Kerry told US media last Sunday that samples collected by first responders after the chemical attack in the Damascus suburb tested positive for the sarin nerve agent. Kerry made nine TV appearances in an attempt to gain public support for military intervention in Syria.
Imej kekal diambil dari video amatur dari laman web media sosial pada 30 Ogos 2013 yang kononnya menunjukkan seorang lelaki cedera berehat selepas serangan yang mengikut video itu berlaku pada 26 Ogos 2013 (This still image taken from an amateur video off a social media website on August 30, 2013 purportedly shows a wounded man recuperating after an attack that according to the video took place on August 26, 2013 (Reuters/Reuters TV – think IN pictures @1WORLDCommunity)
Sabtu lalu, Presiden Amerika Syarikat, Barack Obama mengumumkan bahawa beliau akan mendapatkan kelulusan Kongres untuk menggunakan kekerasan terhadap kerajaan Syria.
Amerika Syarikat bertujuan kelulusan untuk menyerang tentera mungkin terhadap Syria, Rusia berpendapat bahawa ia adalah pembangkang - bukan kerajaan Assad - yang melancarkan serangan 21 Ogos.
Pada sidang akhbar selepas sidang kemuncak G20, Putin memberitahu wartawan bahawa serangan kimia yang dikatakan di Syria adalah “provokasi dilakukan oleh militan pemberontak mengharapkan untuk mendapatkan sokongan asing.”
“Kami percaya bahawa sekurang-kurangnya kita perlu menunggu keputusan pemeriksaan suruhanjaya PBB di Syria,” kata Putin dalam satu temu bual dengan AP dan Saluran 1 TV Rusia awal minggu ini.
Mendapatkan hasil dari ujian makmal akan mengambil masa sehingga 2 minggu, kerana kerumitan sampel menyelesaikan sesuatu. Untuk menentukan ejen telah digunakan dalam serangan itu , ahli kimia mesti menghidupkan kotoran pepejal dan tisu ke dalam cecair dan kemudian ke dalam gas. Untuk berbuat demikian, mereka membubarkan sampel dalam pelarut seperti metanol, sebelum menganalisis komposisi dengan bantuan alat kromatografi gas.
Tandatangan kimia Sarin adalah dikelaskan dalam kod digital 99-125-81. Jika ejen saraf sarin hadir dalam sampel, gas kromatografi akan menunjukkan dengan tepat kod ini, kata Carlos Fraga, seorang ahli kimia yang pakar dalam bidang forensik ejen saraf di Pacific Northwest National Laboratory di Richland, Washington. “Anda sentiasa akan melihat,” katanya.
Tetapi satu ujian adalah jauh daripada mencukupi. Ahli Kimia akan menjalankan 20 ujian tambahan bagi setiap sampel yang datang kembali dengan kod 99-125-81. Antaranya ia yang akan cair ujian kromatografi - spektrometri jisim, ujian kromatografi spektrometri jisim gas, spektroskopi inframerah, dan ujian spektroskopi resolusi tinggi. Setiap ujian akan mengambil kira-kira 2 minggu.
Blok gas Sarin isyarat saraf manusia, menyebabkan beberapa masalah kesihatan tertentu seperti masalah pernafasan, kabur penglihatan, sawan, dan lumpuh, bersama-sama dengan cirit-birit, muntah-muntah, dan sakit kepala.
Pakar juga mesti menentukan dengan tepat yang didahului tanda-tanda kematian mangsa serangan kimia.
Agen saraf lain seperti Soman dan menyebabkan kematian VX dengan cara yang sama, jadi ahli kimia perlu mengesahkan “tandatangan kimia” senjata untuk menentukan bagaimana ejen itu dihasilkan. Maklumat tersebut dijangka memberi petunjuk kepada siapa melancarkan serangan maut pada 21 Ogos - pembangkang atau kerajaan Syria.
Semua ujian yang akan dilakukan di beberapa makmal untuk mengelakkan kesilapan yang mungkin daripada analisis kimia.
Last Saturday, US President Barack Obama announced that he will seek approval in Congress for the use of force against the Syrian government.
As the US seeks approval for a possible military strike against Syria, Russia argues that it was the opposition – not Assad’s government – that launched the August 21 attack.
At a press conference after the G20 summit, Putin told journalists that the alleged chemical attack in Syria was a “provocation staged by the rebel militants expecting to get foreign support.”
“We believe that at the very least we should wait for the results of the UN inspection commission in Syria,” Putin said in an interview to AP and Russia’s Channel 1 TV earlier this week.
Obtaining the results from the lab tests will take up to a fortnight, due to the complexity of sample probing. To determine which agent was used in the attack, chemists must turn solid dirt and tissue into liquid and then into gas. To do that, they dissolve the samples in a solvent, such as methanol, before analyzing its composition with the help of the gas chromatograph.
Sarin’s chemical signature is classified in digital code as 99-125-81. If the sarin nerve agent is present in the samples, the chromatograph gas will show exactly this code, said Carlos Fraga, a chemist who specializes in nerve agent forensics at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. "You're always going to see that," he said.
But one test is far from being enough. Chemists will conduct 20 additional tests for every sample that comes back with a 99-125-81 code. Among those will be liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry tests, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry tests, infrared spectroscopy, and high resolution spectroscopy tests. Each test will take around two weeks.
Sarin gas blocks human nerve signals, causing a number of specific health disorders like respiratory distress, blurred vision, convulsions, and paralysis, along with diarrhea, vomiting, and headaches.
Experts must also determine exactly which symptoms preceded the deaths of the victims of the chemical attack.
Other nerve agents such as soman and VX cause death in a similar way, so chemists must verify the “chemical signature” of the weapon in order to determine how the agent was produced. Such information is expected to give clues as to who launched the deadly attack on August 21 – the opposition or the Syrian government.
All of the tests will be performed in several laboratories to prevent possible inaccuracies of the chemical analyses.
