In this Sunday, Aug. 4, 2013 file photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad delivers a speech at an Iftar dinner with political and religious figures in Damascus, Syria. A U.N. team that is supposed to investigate an alleged deadly chemical attack near the Syrian capital Damascus last week left their hotel Monday, as President Bashar Assad denied his troops used chemical weapons during the fighting in the rebel-held suburb. Assad told Russia’s Izvestia daily, in an interview published Monday, that the accusations that his troops used chemicals were responsible were “politically motivated.” AP/SANA
BEIRUT — A team of U.N. chemical weapons experts are on their way out of Syria after two weeks there.
Officials at the Damascus hotel where they were staying have told The Associated Press the U.N. personnel departed early Friday and were believed to be en route to neighboring Beirut.
The U.N. experts carried out a fourth and final day of inspections Friday as they sought to determine precisely what happened in last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack.
The team took samples from victims of the Aug. 21 attack for examination in laboratories in Europe.