Russia Warns of False-Flag Attacks by Militant, White Helmets in Syria

Date: 14 November 2022 - 21:39

News ID: ۱۰۸۹۶۴

DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – Russia has warned that members of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist outfit together with the so-called civil defense group White Helmets are planning to stage another false-flag attack against civilians in the northwestern province of Idlib to implicate Syrian and Russian military forces.
“The Russian military has received information that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists, in cooperation with White Helmets representatives, intend to carry out provocations in the Idlib de-escalation zone,” said the deputy head of Russian defense ministry’s Center for the Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria, Major General Oleg Yegorov.
He added that the false-flag attacks are meant to incriminate Syrian government forces and Russian troops and accuse them of operations against populated areas and civilian facilities.
The White Helmets group, which claims to be a humanitarian NGO, 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.
On April 14, 2018, the United States, 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.
That alleged attack was reported by the White Helmets group, which published videos showing them purportedly treating survivors.
Washington and its allies blamed Damascus for the Douma attack, an allegation strongly rejected by the Syrian government.
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.