Snipers in Syria shoot at UN chemical inspectors: UN

[pampango]

6. The UN team has not blamed either side. Sniper fire was in a buffer zone.

The United Nations did not blame the sniper fire on either the government or the rebels, instead urging “all sides . . . to extend their cooperation so that the team can safely carry out their important work.” But both the rebels and the government accused one another.

After initially balking, Syria agreed on Sunday to allow the inspectors to visit the Ghouta area of eastern Damascus, where hundreds of people died and thousands were injured last Wednesday in what is widely suspected to have been a chemical attack.

The U.N. Chemical Weapons Investigation Team, wearing body armor, left the Four Seasons Hotel in central Damascus mid-morning on Monday in a convoy of seven vehicles, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene who witnessed the departure.

The team’s first vehicle was in a buffer zone between government and rebel positions when it was “deliberately shot at multiple times by unidentified snipers,” a U.N. statement said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/un-team-headed-to-site-of-alleged-chemical-attack-comes-under-sniper-fire-turns-back/2013/08/26/5ea074c8-0e3f-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html