Moscow says it had warned Washington about the use of toxic shells by a US-backed “moderate” militant group before the Tuesday attack that killed seven people and injured over 20 more in Syria’s Aleppo.
On Wednesday, Lieutenant-General Sergey Chvarkov, the director of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria, said the information was given to the US on Monday, a day prior to the attack.
The Russian Ministry of Defense also confirmed that the attack in Aleppo was launched by a Takfiri terrorist group.
“On August 2, 2016 at 19 hours 05 minutes militants from the Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki group, considered by Washington as ‘moderate opposition’, launched poisonous materials from the Sukkari district towards the eastern part of Aleppo,” read a statement released by the ministry.
Moscow has long insisted that the US-backed so-called moderate opposition groups in Syria should leave the areas held by terrorists. Washington claims it is unable to remove the opposition groups.
A young Syrian man breathing with an oxygen mask at a clinic in the village of Sarmin, southeast of Idlib, following reports of suffocation cases related to a gas attack in the area, March 17, 2015.
It also noted that the shells were fired from militant-held areas towards a residential area.
According to reports, the gas used in the attack was Chlorine, which is highly toxic and leads to respiratory problems and consciousness loss in those who come in contact to it.
Syrians wounded following shelling by militants receive treatment at a hospital in the al-Jamiliyah neighborhood on the government-controlled side of the city of Aleppo on July 8, 2016.
On April 7, 23 people lost their lives and over 100 others suffered breathing difficulties when Daesh terrorists carried out a chemical attack against members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood of Aleppo.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Back in 2014, the UN said it would no more update its death toll for Syria because it could not verify the figures that it received from various sources.
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article.
