US Calls Out Assad Regime for Chemical Weapons Attack While Russia Claims Hoax
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – The US has called out the Assad regime for another chemical weapons attack alleged to have occurred in the militant-heavy Idlib area of Northwest Syria on Sunday.
State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said yesterday that the attack continues “a violent campaign by the Assad regime that violates a ceasefire that has protected several million civilians in the greater Idlib area,” and accused Russia of trying to “create the false narrative that others are to blame for chemical weapons attacks that the Assad regime itself is conducting.”
The statement refers to a report by journalist Robert Fisk in the Independent last year that claimed local witnesses in Douma, Syria–alleged to be the site of another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime in April 2018—told him the attack never happened, but had been fabricated as a pretext for the US, France, and others to subsequently bomb key government positions.
The Assad and Russian governments have made much of the report, with Major General Viktor Kupchishin, the head of the Russian military’s Reconciliation Center in Syria, saying Tuesday that rebel groups were planning new “chemical provocations” against Assad and his allies.
370,000 people have been killed and several million displaced in the Syrian Civil War that has raged between the Assad government and jihadist rebel forces since 2011.