Terrorists plotting chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib, Aleppo: Russia

The Russian Defense Ministry says foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorist groups have stockpiled a large number of chemical munitions in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib in preparation for a false-flag attack to implicate government troops and invent pretexts for possible foreign acts of aggression on the crisis-hit Arab country.

The ministry's Center for Syrian Reconciliation said in a statement released on Tuesday that the extremists have laced the weapons with nerve agents for this end.

"The militants plan to stage such provocations in the village of Jarjanaz, as well as in the town of Saraqib, where a group of children and adults — refugees from the southern provinces of Syria — have already been gathered. Similar preparations are underway in the west of Aleppo province", Maj. Gen. Viktor Kupchishin said at a daily briefing.

The center went on to say that militant groups, under the leadership of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri terror outfit – formerly known as al-Nusra Front, sought to attack the positions of Syrian army forces in al-Hobait village of Idlib province as well as the towns of Kafr Nabudah and Kafr Zita in the western-central province of Hama by means of tank shell and car bombs. 

"Unfortunately, we continue to see signs that the Assad regime may be renewing its use of chemical weapons, including an alleged chlorine attack in northwest Syria on the morning of May 19," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

"We are still gathering information on this incident, but we repeat our warning that if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons, the United States and our allies will respond quickly and appropriately," she said.

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On May 17, the center stated that it had received information from the local residents of the northwestern Syrian city of Saraqib that Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorists were getting ready to carry out a false-flag chemical attack to frame the Russian air force.

The sources added that the extremists were planning to film the alleged poisoning of civilians next to the fragments of Russian munitions later on, and subsequently publish the video on social media networks or hand it over to Western media outlets to create the false notion that Russian fighter jets have targeted residential neighborhoods in the area with chemical weapons.

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On April 23, local sources, requesting not to be named, told Syria’s official news agency SANA that Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorists and Western-backed White Helmets, who have been accused of cooperating with Takfiri militants and staging false-flag gas attacks, were preparing to stage chemical attacks in Idlib and Hama provinces. 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.

PressTV-‘White Helmets’ plotting new gas attack in Syria: Russia

Russia warns that the so-called White Helmets group in Syria are plotting yet another false flag chemical attack against civilians in the country and plan to frame Damascus.

Washington and its allies blamed Damascus for the Douma attack, an allegation rejected by the Syrian government.

Western governments and their allies have never stopped pointing the finger at Damascus whenever an apparent chemical attack takes place.

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.

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