ON Tuesday, the world went to bed with the sad news of Syrian civilians being gassed. This dastardly attack saw the deaths and injuries of almost 100 persons, including infants. Since , the trading of blame has followed. While Syria President Bashar al-Assad has denied culpability, and Russia blamed the Syrian rebels, the United Nations (UN) summoned an emergency Security Council meeting on Wednesday.
Even in war there exist established codes of conduct, whereby warring factions avoid using chemical weapons on each other and targeting civilians. Syria’s more than six-year civil war has not only taken serious toll on the people, but also resulted in the dislocation of thousands, many of whom have fled to Europe and North America seeking refugee status. Infrastructures, some of which go back to earliest civilisation of the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths, have not been spared the casualties of war.
The UN Security Council saw members condemning in the strongest terms what happened on Tuesday. Even more egregious to the attack, outside of those who died, was looking at those who were gasping for breath and suffocating in their body fluids, accepting death as inevitable. Turkey’s Ministry of Health, which treated some of the victims, said the banned deadly nerve gas sarin was used. U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said this gas can cause death within minutes and is “one of the most toxic of the known chemical warfare agents.”
Humanity must never reach the stage where we become insensitive or immune to such atrocities, lest as a people we lose the essence of our being. This on-going war has also created opportunities for extremists to rise and spread terror across the globe. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is one such. What happened in the Idlib province on Wednesday is reminder of similar method and attack on Damascus in 2013. The present reality is deserving of an approach where world leaders have to not only unite in condemnation, but move to put actions in place to curb a war where innocent lives are being seen as incidental and expendable. The Associated Press (6th April) reported that Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called the attack a “war crime of the worst sort” that “cries out for a strong response.”
Another forceful rejection came from U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Nimrata “Nikki” Halley in her presentation to the Security Council on Wednesday. Using pictorial aids of children in various stages of agony, the Ambassador accused Russia of involvement and said the “attack was a new low even from the barbaric Assad regime.” U.S. President Donald Trump on the said day called the attack “horrible, horrible,” and on Thursday evening ordered U.S. missile strikes targeting Syria’s airfields.
The Middle East is a valuable region for many reasons, though parts of it remain a volatile hotbed. Its cultural richness, oil wealth, coupled with internecine violent conflicts born out of disregard for the freedoms and rights of others by zealots and the fertile ground for terrorism are evident. Leaving the conflict zones to resolve its conflicts, or leaving others to pursue self-serving goals at the expense of the denizens, and where apparently none is prepared to give, could pose further threat to global security.

ISIS, which comparatively to Al Qaeda is more extreme, influence and recruitment are spreading far and wide, unrestrained by borders. This presents a threat for the financing and spreading of terrorism. Electronic devices are now being used as purveyors of terrorism, which have since seen the United Kingdom the and U.S. moving to ban them as carry-on for some flights.
The crisis in Syria is real. It cannot be denied the jostling of interests of those who see opportunity to proceed with expansionist ambition by seeking to influence the local power structure and all out efforts by indigenous factions to silent dissent. However, when civilians, more so children, are no longer seen as exempt from being targeted and in such brutal manner, it is time to say enough is enough. World leaders have to come together and find ways to restore normalcy, and hopefully not through another full-scale war.