Members of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri terrorist group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, have reportedly moved barrels with banned chlorine to a town in Syria’s militant-held northwestern province of Idlib, using vehicles of the so-called White Helmets civil defense group.
Head of Damascus-based Syrian Human Rights Network, Ahmad Kazem, told Russia’s Sputnik news agency on Tuesday that the members of the Western-backed aid group, which has been repeatedly accused of cooperating with Takfiri terrorists and staging false flag gas attacks, have started to install cameras in a number of hospitals in a bid to implicate Syrian government forces with the use of chlorine.
“According to our data, several chlorine containers were transported from [the northwestern Syrian city of] Jisr al-Shugur to Khan Shaykhun town, in the south of the Idlib province. The transportation took place under coordination and cooperation between the White Helmets and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorists. The containers with the toxic substance were transported in two ambulances,” Kazem pointed out.
The rights activist went on to say that the containers were later put into freezers, so the chemicals could be used for attacks against civilians.
On October 21 last year, informed sources, requesting not to be named, told Syria’s official news agency SANA that Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorists had moved banned chlorine and sarin munitions from the small city of Ma'arrat Misrin, located 50 kilometers southwest of Aleppo, to Jisr al-Shughour.
The sources added that the munitions were transported inside a refrigerator truck used by White Helmets and under the supervision of the Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria (TIP) militants.
Speaking during a press briefing in the Russian capital Moscow on January 31, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, warned that White Helmets were making preparations to film scenes of staged chemical attacks in Idlib province.
The United States has warned it would respond to any possible chemical weapons attack by Syrian government forces with retaliatory strikes, stressing that the attacks would be stronger than those conducted by American, British and French forces last year.
On April 14, 2018, the US, Britain and France carried out a string of airstrikes against Syria over a suspected chemical weapons attack on the city of Douma, located about 10 kilometers northeast of the capital Damascus.
Washington and its allies blamed Damascus for the Douma attack, an allegation rejected by the Syrian government.
On September 11 last year, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov censured the US threats to use military force against Syria as part of Washington’s blackmail policy.
“Unlike the United States, Britain and their allies, Russia provides particular facts on a daily basis through its Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry as well missions in New York, The Hague and Geneva. We particularly name geographical points, where preparations are underway for certain terrorist groups backed by the US and its allies to carry out provocations,” Ryabkov said.
Western governments and their allies have never stopped pointing the finger at Damascus whenever an apparent chemical attack takes place.
This is while Syria surrendered its stockpile of chemical weapons in 2014 to a joint mission led by the United States and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which oversaw the destruction of the weaponry. It has also consistently denied using chemical weapons.