DAMASCUS (Sputnik) – Militants, together with the ‘White Helmets’ group, are preparing a staged “chemical attack” in Syria’s Idlib province, Rear Adm, Vadim Kulit, the deputy head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria, said on Friday.
“The Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties received information about the preparation of a provocation by the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham in the Idlib de-escalation zone using toxic substances,” Kulit said.
Militants accompanied by representatives of the pseudo-humanitarian organization White Helmets, delivered about 10 barrels of toxic substances by truck to an area near the village of Harim, to Russian military official said, citing information received from locals.
“According to available information, the terrorists intend to stage a ‘chemical attack’ in the southern part of the Jebel el Zawiya ridge for the subsequent accusation of the Syrian government forces of using toxic substances against civilians,” Kulit stated.
Earlier in June, Kulit revealed that Russia had received information about preparations by terrorists of the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group for provocations in the Idlib de-escalation zone using poisonous substances. At the time, sources said that the terrorists delivered a tanker truck with a poisonous substance to the village of Atma, Idlib province, with which they plan to fill rockets.
The White Helmets is a UK-registered non-governmental organization, describing itself as a group of former bakers, tailors, engineers, pharmacists, painters, carpenters, students and workers of other professions who have volunteered to go to the “most dangerous place on earth” and “protect civilians from violence.”
However, the group is known for its coordination with terror outfits in Syria to carry out staged chemical attacks in order to falsely incriminate Syrian government forces and fabricate pretexts for military strikes by a U.S.-led military coalition present in Syria since 2014.
Meanwhile, head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has resorted to new falsehoods and fabrications to avoid accountability about his organization’s cover-up scandal that sought to blame the Syrian government for the 2018 attack in a residential area in Idlib province.
On April 14, 2018, the U.S., 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 as the country had destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile under a 2013 agreement.
Exposed OPCW documents showed that the inspectors who investigated the Douma incident had found “no evidence” of a chemical weapons attack.
Under pressure from the U.S. and Western governments, the organization, however, censored the findings and in a multi-stage cover-up tried to conceal evidence that undermined the pretext for the US-led bombing of Syria in April 2018.
The Grayzone website said in a report published on Friday that OPCW Director General Fernando Arias, facing growing outcry, had gone before the United Nations Security Council on June 3 and told new falsehoods about his organization’s Syria cover-up scandal in addition to more disingenuous excuses to avoid addressing it.