Editing Sarin (section)

===Use as a weapon===
In mid-1939, the formula for the agent was passed to the [[chemical warfare]] section of the [[German Army Weapons Office]], which ordered that it be brought into mass production for wartime use. Pilot plants were built, and a production facility was under construction (but was not finished) by the end of [[World War II]]. Estimates for total sarin production by [[Nazi Germany]] range from 500&nbsp;kg to 10&nbsp;tons.<ref>{{cite news |title=A Short History of the Development of Nerve Gases |publisher=[[Noblis]] |url=http://noblis.com/MissionAreas/nsi/BackgroundonChemicalWarfare/HistoryofChemicalWarfare/Pages/HistoryNerveGas.aspx |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110429191343/http://noblis.com/MissionAreas/nsi/BackgroundonChemicalWarfare/HistoryofChemicalWarfare/Pages/HistoryNerveGas.aspx |archive-date=April 29, 2011}}</ref>

Though sarin, [[tabun (nerve agent)|tabun]], and [[soman]] were incorporated into [[artillery]] shells, Germany did not use nerve agents against [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] targets. [[Adolf Hitler]] refused to initiate the use of gases such as sarin as weapons.<ref>{{cite book |title=Hitler's Miracle Weapons: The Secret History Of The Rockets And Flying Crafts Of The Third Reich; from the V-1 to the A-9: Unconventional Short- and Medium-Range Weapons |last=Georg |first=Friedrich |page=49 |publisher=Helion |date=2003 |isbn=978-1-87-462262-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KAYhAQAAIAAJ}}</ref>

[[File:Demonstration cluster bomb.jpg|thumb|U.S. [[Honest John missile]] warhead cutaway, showing [[M134 bomblet|M134]] Sarin bomblets (c. 1960)]]

[[File:Sarin Gas against animals - weapons experiment.ogg|thumb|Sarin gas used against animals in a weapons experiment]]

* 1950s (early): [[NATO]] adopted sarin as a standard chemical weapon. The USSR and the United States produced sarin for military purposes.
* 1953: 20-year-old [[Ronald Maddison]], a [[Royal Air Force]] engineer from [[Consett]], [[County Durham]], died in human testing of sarin at the [[Porton Down]] chemical warfare testing facility in [[Wiltshire]], England. Ten days after his death an [[inquest]] was held in secret which returned a verdict of [[death by misadventure|misadventure]]. In 2004, the inquest was reopened and, after a 64-day inquest hearing, the jury ruled that Maddison had been unlawfully killed by the "application of a nerve agent in a non-therapeutic experiment".<ref>{{cite news |work=BBC News Online |title=Nerve gas death was 'unlawful' |date=November 15, 2004 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/4013767.stm}}</ref>
* 1957: Regular production of sarin chemical weapons ceased in the United States, though existing stocks of bulk sarin were re-distilled until 1970.<ref name="auto"/>
* 1970: During [[Operation Tailwind]], America may have deployed Sarin gas against the Communist Pathet Lao, alongside American defectors to the Laotian Communists.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Churchill |first1=Ward |title=On the Justice of Roosting Chickens |publisher=AK Press |page=240}}</ref> 
* 1976: Chile's intelligence service, [[Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional|DINA]], assigned biochemist [[Eugenio Berríos]] to develop Sarin gas within its program ''[[Proyecto Andrea]]'', to be used as a weapon against its opponents.<ref name="Consortium">{{cite web |last=Blixen |first=Samuel |title=Pinochet's Mad Scientist |website=[[Robert Parry (journalist) |Consortium News]] |date=January 13, 1999 |url=http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/c011399a.html}}</ref> One of DINA's goals was to package it in spray cans for easy use, which, according to testimony by former DINA agent [[Michael Townley]], was one of the planned procedures in the 1976 [[assassination of Orlando Letelier]].<ref name="Consortium"/> Berríos later testified that it was used in a number of assassinations and it was planned to be used to kill inhabitants, through poisoning the water supply of [[Argentina|Argentine]] capital [[Buenos Aires]], in case [[Operation Soberanía]] took place.<ref name="SarinB">{{cite news |title=Towley reveló uso de gas sarín antes de ser expulsado de Chile |newspaper=[[El Mercurio]] |date=September 19, 2006 |language=es}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |work=New York Times |title=Plot to kill Letelier said to involve nerve gas |date=December 13, 1981 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/13/us/plot-to-kill-letelier-said-to-involve-nerve-gas.html |access-date=June 8, 2015}}</ref>
* March 1988: [[Halabja chemical attack]]; Over two days in March, the ethnic [[Kurds|Kurdish]] city of [[Halabja]] in northern Iraq (population 70,000) was bombarded by [[Saddam Hussein]]'s [[Iraqi Air Force]] jets with chemical bombs including sarin. An estimated 5,000 people died, almost all civilians.<ref>{{cite news |work=BBC News |title=1988: Thousands die in Halabja gas attack |date=March 16, 1988 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/16/newsid_4304000/4304853.stm |access-date=October 31, 2011}}</ref>
* April 1988: Iraq used Sarin four times against Iranian soldiers at the end of the [[Iran–Iraq War#Iraq's use of chemical weapons|Iran–Iraq War]], helping Iraqi forces to retake control of the [[al-Faw Peninsula#Iran-Iraq War|al-Faw Peninsula]] during the [[Second Battle of al-Faw]].
* 1993: The United Nations [[Chemical Weapons Convention]] was signed by 162 member countries, banning the production and stockpiling of many chemical weapons, including sarin. It went into effect on April 29, 1997, and called for the complete destruction of all specified stockpiles of chemical weapons by April 2007.<ref>{{cite web |title=Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction |publisher=Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons |url=http://www.opcw.org/html/db/cwc/eng/cwc_frameset.html |access-date=March 27, 2011}}</ref> When the convention entered force, the parties declared worldwide stockpiles of 15,047 tonnes of sarin. As of November 28, 2019, 98% of the stockpiles have been destroyed.<ref>{{cite report |author=Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons |date=November 30, 2016 |title=Report of the OPCW on the Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction in 2015 |chapter-url=https://www.opcw.org/documents-reports/annual-reports/ |chapter=Annex 3 |page=42 |access-date=March 8, 2017}}</ref>
* 1994: [[Matsumoto incident]]; the Japanese religious sect [[Aum Shinrikyo]] released an impure form of sarin in [[Matsumoto, Nagano]], killing eight people and harming over 500. The Australian sheep station [[Banjawarn Station#Aum Shinrikyo|Banjawarn]] was a testing ground.
* 1995: [[Tokyo subway sarin attack]]; the [[Aum Shinrikyo]] sect released an impure form of sarin in the [[Tokyo Metro]]. Twelve people died, and over 6,200 people received injuries.<ref name="ataxia-chapter3">{{cite report |pages=91,95,100 |chapter=Chapter 3 – Rethinking the Lessons of Tokyo |chapter-url=http://www.stimson.org/books-reports/ataxia-the-chemical-and-biological-terrorism-threat-and-the-us-response/ |title=Ataxia: The Chemical and Biological Terrorism Threat and the US Response |author=Amy E. Smithson and Leslie-Anne Levy |publisher=[[Henry L. Stimson Centre]] |date=October 2000 |id=Report No. 35 |access-date=January 6, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924110431/http://www.stimson.org/books-reports/ataxia-the-chemical-and-biological-terrorism-threat-and-the-us-response/ |archive-date=September 24, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Martin |first1=Alex |title=1995 Aum sarin attack on Tokyo subway still haunts, leaving questions unanswered |work=The Japan Times Online |date=March 19, 2018 |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/03/19/national/crime-legal/1995-aum-sarin-attack-tokyo-subway-still-haunts-leaving-questions-unanswered/}}</ref>
* 2002: Pro-[[Chechen Republic of Ichkeria|Chechen]] militant [[Ibn al-Khattab]] may have been assassinated with sarin by the Russian government.<ref>{{cite news |title=More of Kremlin's Opponents Are Ending Up Dead |date=August 21, 2016 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/world/europe/moscow-kremlin-silence-critics-poison.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=The chemical weapons convention and OPCW: the challenges of the 21st century |author=Ian R Kenyon |date=June 2002 |journal=The CBW Conventions Bulletin |publisher=Harvard Sussex Program on CBW Armament and Arms Limitation |issue=56 |page=47 |url=http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hsp/bulletin/cbwcb56.pdf}}</ref>
* May 2004: [[Iraqi insurgency (Iraq War)|Iraqi insurgents]] detonated a 155&nbsp;mm shell containing binary precursors for sarin near a U.S. convoy in [[Iraq]]. The shell was designed to mix the chemicals as it spun during flight. The detonated shell released only a small amount of sarin gas, either because the explosion failed to mix the binary agents properly or because the chemicals inside the shell had degraded with age. Two United States soldiers were treated after displaying the early symptoms of exposure to sarin.<ref>{{cite news |title=Bomb said to hold deadly Sarin gas explodes in Iraq |last=Brunker |first=Mike |date=May 17, 2004 |publisher=MSNBC |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4997808 |access-date=August 3, 2007}}</ref>
* March 2013: [[Khan al-Assal chemical attack]]; Sarin was used in an attack on a town west of [[Aleppo]] city in [[Syria]], killing 28 and wounding 124.<ref name="Khan al-Assal">{{cite news |last=Barnard |first=Anne |title=Syria and Activists Trade Charges on Chemical Weapons |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 19, 2013 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/world/middleeast/syria-developments.html?pagewanted=all |access-date=March 19, 2013}}</ref>
* August 2013: [[Ghouta chemical attack]]; Sarin was used in multiple simultaneous attacks in the [[Ghouta]] region of the [[Rif Dimashq]] Governorate of Syria during the [[Syrian Civil War]].<ref name="PortonDown_sarin_Ghouta">{{cite news |last=Murphy |first=Joe |title=Cameron: British scientists have proof deadly Sarin gas was used in chemical weapons attack |date=September 5, 2013 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |df=mdy-all |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/cameron-british-scientists-have-proof-deadly-sarin-gas-was-used-in-chemical-weapons-attack-8800528.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906013530/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/cameron-british-scientists-have-proof-deadly-sarin-gas-was-used-in-chemical-weapons-attack-8800528.html |archive-date=September 6, 2013}}</ref> Varying<ref name="MSF_neurotoxic">{{cite news |title=Syria: Thousands suffering neurotoxic symptoms treated in hospitals supported by MSF |publisher=[[Médecins Sans Frontières]] |date=August 24, 2013 |df=mdy-all |url=http://www.msf.org/article/syria-thousands-suffering-neurotoxic-symptoms-treated-hospitals-supported-msf |access-date=August 24, 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826214418/http://www.msf.org/article/syria-thousands-suffering-neurotoxic-symptoms-treated-hospitals-supported-msf |archive-date=August 26, 2013}}</ref> sources gave a death toll of 322<ref name="NGO">{{cite news |title=NGO says 322 died in Syria 'toxic gas' attacks |agency=AFP |date=August 25, 2013 |url=http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/322-died-in-syria-toxic-gas-attacks-ngo-410028 |access-date=August 24, 2013}}</ref> to 1,729.<ref name="opposition">{{cite news |title=Bodies still being found after alleged Syria chemical attack: opposition |publisher=Dailystar.com.lb |url=http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Aug-22/228268-bodies-still-being-found-after-alleged-syria-chemical-attack-opposition.ashx |access-date=August 24, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190305230820/http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Aug-22/228268-bodies-still-being-found-after-alleged-syria-chemical-attack-opposition.ashx |archive-date=March 5, 2019}}</ref>
* April 2017: [[Khan Shaykhun chemical attack]]: The [[Syrian Air Force]] released sarin gas in rebel-held Idlib Province in Syria during an [[airstrike]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Chemical attack of 4 April 2017 (Khan Sheikhoun): Clandestine Syrian chemical weapons programme |language=en |url=http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/170425_-_evaluation_nationale_-_anglais_-_final_cle0dbf47-1.pdf |access-date=April 26, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Syrian regime dropped sarin on rebel-held town in April, UN confirms |last=Chulov |first=Martin |date=September 6, 2017 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/06/syrian-regime-dropped-sarin-on-rebel-held-town-in-april-un-confirms |access-date=December 29, 2017}}</ref>
* April 2018: Victims of the [[Douma chemical attack]] in Syria reported to have symptoms consistent with exposure to sarin and other agents. On July 6, 2018, the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) of the OPCW published their interim report. The report stated that, "The results show that no organophosphorous [sarin] nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties". The chemical agent used in the attack was later identified as elemental [[chlorine]].<ref>{{cite report |title=OPCW Issues Fact-Finding Mission Reports on Chemical Weapons Use Allegations in Douma, Syria in 2018 and in Al-Hamadaniya and Karm Al-Tarrab in 2016 |publisher=Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons |date=July 6, 2018 |url=https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-issues-fact-finding-mission-reports-on-chemical-weapons-use-allegations-in-douma-syria-in-2018-and-in-al-hamadaniya-and-karm-al-tarrab-in-2016/ |access-date=July 14, 2018
}}</ref>
* July 2023: The U.S. destroyed the last of its declared chemical weapons, a sarin nerve agent-filled [[M55 rocket]], on July 7, 2023.<ref>{{cite web |title=U.S. destroys last of its declared chemical weapons |website=CBS |date=July 7, 2023 |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-destroys-last-chemical-weapons/ |access-date=July 11, 2023}}</ref>