Syria: Russia slammed after accusing opposition of “alleged chemical attack”

Syria: More than 60 civilians killed in new chemical massacre by Assad regime
A man carries the body of a child, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, Ammar Abdullah/Reuters

Russia was slammed by the global powers after it said that the chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib, in which more than 70 civilians were killed, was due to an explosion of ammunition warehouse belonging to the opposition and not a result of air strikes by Assad regime.



The Edlib Media Centre (EMC), a pro-opposition group, posted images that were widely shared on social media, showing people being treated by medics and what appeared to be dead bodies, many of them children.

“This morning, at 6:30 a.m., warplanes targeted Khan Sheikhoun with gases, believed to be sarin and chlorine,” said Mounzer Khalil, head of Idlib’s health authority. The attack had killed more than 50 people and wounded 300, he said.

“Most of the hospitals in Idlib province are now overflowing with wounded people,” Khalil told a news conference in Idlib.


Khan Sheikhun houses thousands of refugees from the nearby province of Hama who have fled the fighting there.

Locals said the attack began in the early morning when they heard planes in the sky followed by a series of loud explosions after which people very quickly began to show symptoms. They said they could not identify the planes. Both Syrian and Russian jets have bombed the area before.







“The families are in a terrible state because they expect the victims to die.”

Mohammad said the victims he had seen had constricted irises, low oxygen and poor blood pressure and were drifting in and out of consciousness. Many were on respirators.

Russia blames the rebels

Moscow offered an alternative explanation that would shield Assad: that the poison gas belonged to rebels and had leaked from a weapons depot hit by Assad regime air force.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that “Syrian aircraft have conducted an airstrike near the town of Khan Shaykhun in Syria’s Idlib province on the warehouse of terrorists’ ammunition and the mass of military equipment, where chemical weapons’ ammunition had also been stored and delivered to Iraq.”


Konashenkov said that “from this warehouse, chemical weapons’ ammunition was delivered to Iraq by militants.”

Konashenkov added that “there were workshops for manufacturing bombs, stuffed with poisonous substances, on the territory of this warehouse,” adding that “these munitions with toxic substances were also used by militants in Syria’s Aleppo.”

The command of Assad regime’s army rejected “accusations of using chemical weapons” in Idlib province and placed responsibility for that on “militants and their patrons.”

The army command and the Armed Forces categorically deny the use of any chemical weapons in the town of Khan Shaykhun in the suburb of Idlib today,” according to an Assad Armed Forces’ command statement.


Supporting Assad’s war on terrorism

In addition, the Kremlin said that Russia will not abandon Assad in the face of the international conspiracy on him and will keep supporting “his war on terrorism” even if Moscow risks deteriorating relations with the US.

“Russia and its Armed Forces continue the operation to support the anti-terrorist operation to liberate the country carried out by the Syrian Arab Republic’s army,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman said.

When asked to comment on Western states’ accusations blaming the Syrian president for the attack, Peskov said that he has “nothing to add to the facts voiced by the Russian Defense Ministry.”

“As for Kremlin’s plans, the plan is to continue the consistent line of the decisive fight against terrorism, which the Russian president has been conducting for years. We have repeatedly said that we lack international cooperation, and that happens not due to our fault. But despite this, Russia is determined to continue its efforts to combat terrorism,” Peskov added.

Slamming Russia’s allegations


U.S. intelligence officials, based on a preliminary assessment, said the deaths were most likely caused by sarin nerve gas dropped by Syrian aircraft on the town of Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday. A senior state department official said Washington had not yet ascertained it was sarin.


France’s Ambassador to the UN Francois Delattre refuted arguments made by Russia and Assad regime.

“There was no fire, even though such a strike [on an alleged chemical warehouse] would have caused a fire, and the consequences would have been much more serious for the civilian population,” he said.

UK Ambassador the UN Matthew Rycroft said the attack “bears all the hallmarks fo the Assad regime”.

“There’s only one air force that has used such weapons in Syria,” he said.

In addition, the German newspaper SPIEGEL ONLINE rejected the Russian claims calling them “a lie”

“This is a lie: eyewitnesses report that the attack occurred around 6:30 am local time. The first news from the news agencies ran just before 9 o’clock in Central European summer time, that is, around 10 o’clock in the Syrian period. Already at this time it was said that the victims showed symptoms of a poison gas attack. Video recordings of victims with dyspnoea and convulsions were already circulating on the Internet,” Spiegel reported.

“The time given by the Russian government can’t be true. The time window fits more closely with the second attack wave on the 90,000-inhabitant city, where, among other things, a hospital was hit,” the report added.
