MESOP NEWS : PUTIN’S PARTNER – THE GASMAN BASHAR AL ASSAD

At least 58 people were killed on Tuesday by regime chemical weapons attacks in Idlib Province in northwest Syria, according to witnesses and medical staff. The “gas attack” was on the town of Khan Sheikhoun. Photographs showed victims, some with foam around their mouths, in the street and being treated by rescuers.The regime has carried out a series of chemical attacks in recent months, from the assault to reoccupy all of Aleppo Province to strikes in northern Hama Province — including on a hospital — in the past week to bombardment of Idlib Province.

The attacks have been with chlorine canisters dropped inside barrel bombs, but the symptoms of today’s victims and the scale of the casualties are leading to speculation that a stronger agent — such as sarin, which killed more than 1,400 people in the regime’s attacks near Damascus in August 2013 — may have been used.On Sunday, pro-Assad airstrikes knocked out the national hospital in Ma’arat al-Num’an, which had been treating victims of the attacks.