DAMASCUS, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria stated Wednesday that the Syrian government warplanes were behind sarin gas attack in Idlib province last April.
The UN war investigators said a government warplane dropped sarin on the town of Khan Sheikoun in the countryside of Idlib province last April, killing 80 people.
It added that the government forces had used chemical weapons over two dozen times during the nearly seven-year crisis.
"These attacks constitute clear violations of international humanitarian law and the Convention on Chemical Weapons, which the Syrian Arab Republic ratified in 2013 following a previous sarin attack," it said.
The Syrian government has vehemently denied the accusations in previous statements, as it wasn't the first time the government was accused of being behind the April attack, which drew in a U.S. strike that targeted a Syrian air base in Homs province.
At the time, the U.S. didn't wait for any investigation, taking a solo action of striking the Shairat Air Base, saying the warplanes that struck Khan Sheikhoun flew from that base.
The Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said last month that government would provide help for the international fact-finding mission tasked to probe chemical attack allegations in Syria.
A fact-finding mission from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was supposed to come within a few days after Mekdad's Aug. 17 remarks.
However, no information was ever revealed about the advent of the OPCW investigators, who previously confirmed the chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, but stopped short of identifying the perpetrator.
In April, the opposition activists accused the government warplanes of dropping sarin, an odorless gas, on the town.
The Syrian government denied carrying out a chemical attack, saying its warplanes struck an arms depot of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, which controls much of Idlib.
The Syrian government has yet to comment on the latest accusation by the UN commission of inquiry.
