The Conservative Cave
Current Events => General Discussion => Topic started by: HAPPY2BME on April 13, 2017, 02:09:15 PM
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The United States denies hitting Islamic State poison gas depot with air strike.
The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State on Thursday denied a Syrian army report it had carried out an air strike that had hit poison gas supplies belonging to IS and caused the deaths of hundreds of people.
A statement by the Syrian army, circulated by state media, said the alleged incident late on Wednesday in the eastern Deir al-Zor province proved that Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked militants "possess chemical weapons".
Syria and its ally Russia have both asserted that insurgents fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad have stocks of banned poison gas, seeking to pin the blame on the rebels for a chemical weapons attack that killed scores of people in northwest Syria on April 4.
Washington and its allies say there is no doubt that the Syrian military carried out that attack, which prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to order cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base last week.
Responding to Thursday's Syrian army claim, U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the coalition, said it had carried out no air strikes in the area of Deir al-Zor at the time.
"The Syrian claim is incorrect and likely intentional misinformation," Dorrian said in an email to Reuters.
The Russian defence ministry said it had no information about people killed in an attack by international coalition forces in Deir al-Zor, according to RIA news agency. A ministry spokesman said Russian forces had sent drones to check the area.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told news agency AFP in an interview published on Thursday that the alleged April 4 poison gas attack in Idlib province was a "100 percent fabrication".
The British delegation at the world's chemical weapons watchdog said samples taken from the alleged attack site tested positive for the nerve agent sarin.
"We believe it is highly likely that the attack was carried out by the Assad regime," British Prime Minister Theresa May said in a televised statement. "Apart from anything else, we believe it's only the regime that has the capability to make such an attack."
The retaliatory U.S. strike on the Syrian air base was the first time Washington has deliberately and directly targeted the Syrian government. The United States is separately waging an air campaign against Islamic State in eastern Syria.
http://www.trunews.com/article/u.s.-we-did-not-hit-islamic-state-poison-gas-depot
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Assad: Chemical Attack Allegations ‘100 Percent Fabrication’
BEIRUT, April 13 (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said an alleged poison gas attack blamed on his government last week in Idlib province was “100 percent fabrication” used to justify a U.S. air strike, news agency AFP reported on Thursday.
Syria’s military had given up all its chemical weapons in 2013 after an agreement made at the time, and would not have used them anyway, AFP quoted Assad as saying in an interview. The United States and its allies say the Syrian military carried out the Idlib attack, something Syria has already denied.
The April 4 attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun killed scores of people and prompted the United States to launch a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base in response, its first direct assault on the Assad government in the six-year-old conflict.
http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/04/13/assad-chemical-attack-allegations-100-percent-fabrication/