BEIRUT: The world’s chemical arms watchdog froze its probe into an alleged chemical attack near Damascus Wednesday, demanding “unhindered access” after a United Nations reconnaissance mission came under fire.

Four days after reaching the Syrian capital, international inspectors had yet to begin their field work in Douma, where dozens were killed in a suspected gas attack widely blamed on President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said its fact-finding mission (FFM) would be forced to stay put in Damascus if its safety was not guaranteed.

Officers from the UN security agency (UNDSS) went on a reconnaissance mission Tuesday to Douma, a town that was controlled by rebels until Russian-backed regime forces fully retook it last week.

At one of two visited sites, “the team came under small arms fire and an explosive was detonated,” Ahmet Uzumcu, the chief of the Netherlands-based OPCW, said in a statement.

He did not specify who might have opened fire on the UN reconnaissance mission on Tuesday, nor did any other official. The team was also forced to withdraw from another visited site due to security concerns.

Uzumcu said he would only consider deploying the team to Douma with UNDSS approval and if the inspectors had “unhindered access to the sites”.

“This incident again highlights the highly volatile environment in which the FFM is having to work and the security risks our staff are facing,” he said.

Uzumcu had earlier said Syrian authorities had offered the OPCW interviews with “22 witnesses who could be brought to Damascus” while security issues were worked out.

Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari told the Security Council on Tuesday that the OPCW experts would begin their investigation once they received the all-clear from the UN team.

“If this United Nations security team decides that the situation is sound in Douma, then the fact-finding mission will begin its work in Douma tomorrow,” Jaafari said.

Holdout fighters from the Islamist group Jaish al-Islam said an April 7 attack by the regime was carried out with chemical munitions and forced them to accept a transfer deal.

That agreement was the death knell for a six-year opposition presence in Eastern Ghouta, a semi-rural area within mortar range of central Damascus.

The alleged chemical attack, grisly footage of which shocked the world, prompted a coordinated wave of unprecedented missile strikes by the United States, France and Britain against regime targets.—AFP