Syrian government claims rebels behind chemical weapon attacks
Print Edition
Syria’s government said yesterday rebel fighters had used chemical weapons in a northeastern district of the capital, countering charges by insurgents that the government was behind such attacks.
State television ran footage of “barrels filled with highly dangerous toxic and chemical agents” as well as gas masks, saying they were only a small sample of what had been unearthed in rebel positions.
The rebels “used these agents to try to halt the advance of the army,” it said.
“An army unit is surrounding a sector of Jobar where terrorists used chemical weapons,” said the broadcaster, adding that soldiers entering the neighborhood had “suffocated.”
Rebel-held Jobar on the outskirts of Damascus has been under army bombardment and air strikes for several months.
The state broadcaster said several soldiers had suffered poison gas inhalation and some were in critical condition.
Syria’s opposition denied the charges, saying the government was attempting to divert attention from its own use of them. “The National Coalition totally rejects the lies from the (President Bashar al-) Assad regime and considers them a desperate bid to divert attention from its repeated crimes and methods against Syrian civilians,” the main opposition bloc said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government carried out four air raids yesterday on areas near Jobar, where soldiers and rebels were locked in fierce clashes.
The state broadcaster also said Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which both openly support the 29-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, had supplied rebels with the gas masks and medication.
In Jobar, “the army found barrels marked ‘made in Saudi Arabia’ and gas masks,” a correspondent for the channel reported, adding that a drug for poison gas inhalation was also found, with the brand of an unnamed German-Qatari firm.
The UN disarmament envoy, Under Secretary General Angela Kane, was in Damascus yesterday, after the opposition accused Assad’s forces of killing more than 1,300 people in gas attacks on Wednesday.
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