MESOP FOCUS : Is ASSAD Regime & RUSSIAN Propaganda Preparing Ground for Another Chemical Attack?

29 Sept 2016 – Are Russia and the Assad regime laying the propaganda foundations to cover up another chemical attack by President Assad’s forces, this time inside Syria’s largest city Aleppo? While the regime has tested chemical agents since late 2011 and carried out attacks since early 2013 — notably, the killing of more than 1,400 people near Damascus with sarin in August 2013 — it has refrained so far from striking Aleppo city.However, eyebrows were raised on Sunday when the regime’s UN Ambassador, Bashar al-Ja’afari, set out a scenario in which rebels would carry out a chemical attack.

Ja’afari told the UN Security Council that he had “received information that terrorists from the Ahrar al-Sham movement” were going use “yellow phosphorus” while “dressed in Syrian Army uniforms”. The Ambassador claimed the chemicals were stories in an underground warehouse “beneath a garbage dump” about 20 km (12.5 miles) from opposition-held Idlib city. He asserted that the US is complicit in the plan, as “two American experts have visited the location in where the chemicals are stored and left afterwards via Turkey”.

Ja’afari asserted, “[Rebels] will record and publish videos and photos of these attacks in order to accuse the Syrian Army of carrying them out.”

There is no evidence to corroborate any of Ja’afari claims, including the rebel-controlled warehouse with chemicals and the visit of the American personnel. However, on Wednesday pro-regime websites propped up the campaign with the declaration that “jihadist rebels” had used “chlorine gas” against the Syrian army in northern Hama Province, with 18 soldiers hospitalized. www.mesop.de