President Assad has denied his government ever used chemical weapons.

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EPA/Rex/Shutterstock

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Kareem Shaheen in Istanbul
Wednesday 26 April 2017 14.14 BSTFirst published on Wednesday 26 April
2017 11.00 BST

French intelligence has identified the chemical signature of the Syrian

government at the site of a nerve agent attack this month, indicating that the
sarin used in the bombing came from Bashar al-Assads stockpiles.

Samples from the scene of the attack in the town of Khan Sheikhun, contained
chemical compounds that were a hallmark of Assads sarin manufacturing
process and matched samples collected from the site of a prior attack by
government forces, a declassified intelligence report says.

It also indicates that the sarin used in the 4 April attack, which killed more than
80 people, was delivered from the air, adding further weight to the international
consensus that the Assad regime was responsible for the massacre.

Based on this overall evaluation and on reliable and consistent intelligence

collected by our services, France assesses that the Syrian armed forces and
security services perpetrated a chemical attack using sarin against civilians, the
report says.

The Khan Sheikhun attack drew international condemnation and provoked a US

missile strike on a Syrian airbase.

The French intelligence report, presented by the foreign minister, Jean-Marc

Ayrault, adds weight to a mounting body of evidence pointing to the Assad
regimes responsibility for the chemical attack.

The US government had reached a similar conclusion based on its own

intelligence assessment and signals intelligence gathered from Syria. Tests
conducted in Turkey on victims of the attack found isopropyl methylphosphonic
acid, a chemical that sarin degrades into, in blood and urine samples, but the
French analysis went further.

In addition to proving the presence of sarin in environmental samples collected

from the impact zone in Khan Sheikhun, the French analysis indicated that the
sarin was delivered using aerial munitions, which rules out the theory that the
chemical attack was perpetrated by rebel forces, who do not possess an air force.

French analysis of the chemical compounds from the site also pointed to the
presence of sarin, hexamine and diisopropyl methylphosphonate, a compound
formed when sarin is synthesised. The chemicals found there essentially match
the biological fingerprint of the Assad governments sarin manufacturing
process, as the same chemicals were found in samples collected from a 2013
attack in the town of Saraqeb in Idlib, which was also linked to the regime.

We know, from a certain source, that the process of fabrication of the samples
taken is typical of the method developed in Syrian laboratories, Ayrault told
reporters after presenting the findings to the French cabinet. This method is the
signature of the regime and it is what enables us to establish the responsibility of
the attack. We know because we kept samples from previous attacks that we were
able to use for comparison.

The conclusions of the French report further undermine allegations by Moscow,

Assads primary backer, and the Syrian government, which vacillated from
blaming the attack on the rebels to arguing that it never happened, and then
blaming it on an airstrike on a warehouse in Khan Sheikhun where the rebels had
allegedly stockpiled sarin.

The Guardian visited the site of the massacre two days after the chemical attack
and independently confirmed that the warehouse and nearby grain silos were
empty and had not been bombed recently, contrary to Russian claims.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on 19 April that
sarin or a similar banned toxin had been used in the Khan Sheikhun attack, but it
is not mandated to assign blame.

The OPCW had overseen the supposed dismantling of the Syrian chemical
weapons programme, a signature achievement by the previous US
administration under Barack Obama. Since then, evidence has emerged that the
Assad government had failed to account for its entire chemical arsenal and has
instead maintained the capacity to weaponise sarin.
 Since 2013, numerous incidents of chlorine gas use by the government have been
reported, with limited casualties. The Khan Sheikhun attack was the largest mass
casualty incident involving chemical weapons since the Ghouta massacre of 2013,
widely blamed on Assads forces, which killed more than 1,400 people in
opposition territory near Damascus.

Punch a shark, whistle away a bear: how to survive deadly

encounters
Jules Howard
From crocodiles in ponds to wasps in service stations or vampires in your
hammock, your best bet for dealing with predators is simple: respect them

A bop on the snout saw off a shark believed to be a Galapagos shark, estimated
at 8ft long that attacked a British woman at the weekend. Photograph:
Malcolm Francis/NIWA

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@juleslhoward
Wednesday 26 April 2017 13.34 BSTLast modified on Wednesday 26 April
2017 16.53 BST

Punching sharks in the face isnt something to be attempted lightly, but in the
jaws of death it can be the best means of remaining uneaten, as this weekends
incident involving a shark attack on a British woman attests. Here are some tips
to help you remain alive should you face any other predators.

Bears

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Brown bear, or black bear? you have four seconds to decide. Photograph:
Michel Roggo/NPL/Rex
Being rather chunky animals with their heads held low, bears dont always
anticipate a Karrimor-covered ape lunging through the undergrowth towards
them. To remedy this, make lots of noise while walking to ensure all local bears
know you are coming. Many hikers whistle inane tunes to themselves not
because they are dosed up on the joys of spring, but because they are very
publicly fearing for their own lives.

If you happen to be hiking in the Rockies of North America, be very careful never
to stroll accidentally between a mother and her nearby cubs. This is very bad. If
this happens to you, youll know things are escalating when you hear the tell-tale
sound of trees snapping and boulders scattering as a mother bear makes a dash
toward your throat. Stay calm, for it is in these vital few seconds that you must
correctly identify which species of bear is running at you.

If it is a grizzly bear, remember to play dead as it leaps upon your body.

Hopefully itll soon get bored and all will be fine. However, if its a black bear that
is upon you, writhing and slashing at your torso, you must definitely not play
dead. You must fight back, else you may be eaten. Black bears and grizzlies often
look alike but dont worry, like I said, youll have at least have three or four
seconds to determine the species. Grizzly bears have bigger shoulders, I think. Or
is that black bears? I cant remember. Youll be fine.
Crocodile

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Dont show off like Crocodile Dundee. Photograph:
Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock
If you find yourself in a position where youre having to punch a crocodile in the
face, its fair to say that youve ignored the key signs: 1) The snapping of jaws
warning that you are too close to said crocodile with your cameraphone; 2) the
intense hissing noise as it warns you to turn off the flash; and 3) the signs
warning you that crocodiles are present and that you shouldnt be showing off
like Crocodile Dundee.

True, in many parts of the world there arent signs. And sometimes crocodiles
(particularly over two metres in length) will attack because they consider you
food, not because youre getting too close in a bid to get more likes on Instagram.
If you happen to be near a water hole that large crocodiles are known to frequent,
you can limit the potential for attack by staying away from the water. The water is
not your place. Avoid late-night swims. Actually, avoid swimming at all. You are
not a water animal.

On a boat, keep arms and legs on board at all times. If you see a crocodile, keep
your eyes on it. Stare it out, like starlings mobbing a hawk. If it knows youre
aware of it, the croc has lost its edge. Itll soon be gone. For now. Its nothing
personal, you understand.

Killer wasps

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An empty fizzy-drinks can will, in the same way that a warplane drops chaff to
deter radar-guided missiles, keep wasps away from your picnic. Photograph:
Mustafa Quraishi/AP
Britain seems to have divided into two camps on wasps, which are of course
capable of killing through allergy. Some choose to flail their arms around in a
desperate attempt to deter the inquisitive creatures; others freeze like statues, as
if wasps are somehow, like the Tyrannosaurus rex in Jurassic Park, incapable of
seeing still objects.

The truth is that wasps actually see pretty well, and so the ice-cream smeared on
your childs lips remains to them a high-calorie option that they want to know
more about. The temptation is to kill them when they buzz around us at picnics,
but try not to do this. When sensing the tiny chemical clouds that leak from dying
wasps, nest-mates are known to respond with impressive vim and get more even
more angry.

The common wasp is one of the worlds most inquisitive and annoying wasps
when compared with most wasp species, many of which do impressive service for
humankind by pollinating flowers and removing pests. I once saw in a British
service station a busload of hardy Australians running away from wasps, so they
seem to be gaining quite the killer reputation.

The best advice to ward them off? I find, like a warplane releasing chaff to deter a
radar-guided missile, dropping empty fizzy-drink cans a safe-distance from the
picnic often works. As does staying indoors with the doors and windows shut.

Squid

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Hooked tentacles pull you downwards... A Humboldt squid shows off its
weaponry Photograph: BBC/IAN KELLETT/BBC
Picture the scene. Youre on an open-sea dive at night. You bob there, a few
metres down beneath your boat, trying to make out the shadows that dart and
loop beneath you. You stare down at the abyss and the abyss stares back at you
with eyes that are very like your own ... but different. Bigger. There are lots of
them down there. These creatures have tentacles. They are approaching
curiously. They are squid, Humboldt squid, and are almost as big as you.

Oh, whats this? Theyre coming closer now. Oh, wow, theyre touching you now.
They are feeling up your legs and arms and torso with their long muscular
tentacles. Oh, whats that? One is also on your face now. Theyre pulling.
Downwards. Theyre tugging you down into the dark depths where they can do
unspeakable things to you in atmospheres more suitable to their digestion. And
now, Christ, theyre biting you too, with razor sharp beaks hidden amongst their
maze of limbs. Their hooked tentacles pull you downwards with greater force
now. The pressure rises.

You drop 30 feet in a few seconds. Your eardrums almost rupture. You scream.
But then you are suddenly let go by the squid as if it was all some big mistake.
You desperately swim back to your boat and live to tell the tale.

This is what is alleged to have happened to the marine biologist Alex Kerstitch in
1990. The message? Some wild animals, well, we have no idea about how we
might stop them eating us. Perhaps we should more readily accept our natural
place in the foodweb of life.

Vampire bats

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Stealthy bloodlust: a vampire bat on a pub crawl. Photograph: Nicolas
Reusens / Barcroft Image/Nicolas Reusens /Barcroft Images
Alexander von Humboldt, the famed explorer after whom the squid in the above
section was named, had a thing about being eaten. He rather liked the idea of
being attacked by vampire bats.

Many a night have I slept with my foot out of the hammock to tempt this winged
surgeon, expecting that he would be there; but it was all in vain; the vampire
never sucked me, and I could never account for his not doing so, he recorded in
his diary, forlornly.

Decades later, the honour of being attacked by vampire bats fell instead to
another explorer. Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of the theory of evolution
by natural selection, spent many of his formative years in South America where
he often came across the bats. As I wear stockings of a night, wrap myself well in
my blanket, and often cover my face with a handkerchief, I have hitherto escaped
being bitten, he wrote in his journal, sounding not unlike an insomniac four-
year-old on Halloween. ... but they often come to my hammock in search of a
vulnerable point.

His camp-mates were apparently besieged nightly by the stealthy bloodlust of the
incredible bats. Wallaces advice to avoid them? The best preventative against
them is to keep a lamp burning all night, is as much as he offers. Nowadays
weve come up with a much more gung ho method: destroying with chainsaws
the natural habitats on which they depend. Many populations still survive
however, feeding on livestock.

Whos the real monster?

Though all these animals excite us and capture our interests in all sorts of ways,
they arent monsters. If you do end up face to jaw with any of these creatures,
remember that they occupied the habitat first: afford them the respect they
deserve, and sometimes, often, theyll offer the same back.