Nerve Gas!

This is coolbert:

From that prior entry:

P.S. "TO MY KNOWLEDGE SARIN OR VX NERVE GAS HAS NEVER BEEN USED IN A COMBAT SITUATION!"

From StrategyPage some additional info, the use of nerve agents in the combat situation:

"NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS"

May 1, 2013:

"Nerve gas was first used a lot [?] in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War. Some of the casualties were treated in Western hospitals, which provided much of the first-hand on the impact of these weapons against humans. Iraq used nerve gas against its rebellious Kurds in the late 1980s, killing some 5,000 civilians [Halabja Massacre]. The Japanese Aum Shinri Kyo cult used nerve gas in several terror attacks during the 1990s. Most of these attacks caused only a handful of injuries. But one Sarin attack, with gas released in five subway cars, killed twelve people and sent over 5,000 to the hospital (but only a fifth of these had noticeable nerve gas injuries.) A few Iraqi nerve gas shells were used [?] against American troops in 2004, but there were no fatalities."

More than anything else, the threat of poison gas creates difficulties not so much as casualties for PREPARED, EQUIPPED AND TRAINED MILITARY FORCES BUT RATHER those precautionary measures a nuisance drastically in some instances slowing down operations the complications extreme.

As has been the case since the end of World War One, retaliation in kind also requiring stockpiling of dangerous and hazardous chemical munitions a problem just in itself.

Measures and equipment needed to ward off chemical munitions to include:

* The proper masks with the proper filters and replacements for both.

* The chemical suits and replacements for same.

* Antidotes.

* Decontamination gear.

* That entire decontamination process.

* The debilitating effects of prolonged wearing of masks and suits.

* The disposal of all contaminated equipment to include masks and suits.

* Training and preparation of the troops for chemical attack.

The Syrian too follows Soviet/Russian doctrine with regard to the use of chemical weaponry? That means any use includes two dissimilar poisons used simultaneously on the same target. Mustard and nerve agents, mustard and blood agents, nerve and blood agents, etc. Masks, the filters, the decontamination process that much more complicated.

Absolutely undisputed proof of what chemicals used and to what extent hard  to come by under such circumstances?

Guaranteed proof needed that search for samples of itself a hazardous mission.

coolbert.