The UN Security Council has unanimously decided to extend for another year the mandate of a panel tasked with investigating chemical attacks in Syria and identifying those responsible.

    The council adopted a US-drafted resolution to prolong the joint investigation by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) until November 2017.

    US Ambassador Samantha Power said the work of the panel, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), was "far from finished." The JIM has already established during its year-long investigation that Syrian government forces carried out three chlorine gas attacks on villages in 2014 and 2015.

Source: QNA