Russia strikes rebel targets over 'chlorine' attack

ALEPPO: A Syrian boy receives treatment at a hospital in the regime controlled Aleppo on November 24, 2018. Official Syrian media accused the armed opposition of launching an attack with 'toxic gas' on the northern city, but a leading rebel alliance has denied any involvement. _ AFP

DAMASCUS: Around 100 Syrians have been hospitalized with breathing difficulties in Aleppo, state media and a monitor said Sunday, after allegations rebels fired "toxic gas" on the regime-held city the previous day. A rebel alliance in nearby Idlib denied any involvement in the alleged attack. State news agency SANA reported "107 cases of breathing difficulties" in an updated toll yesterday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said a total of 94 people were hospitalized, but most had been discharged and the 31 cases that remained were not critical.

Late Saturday, state media accused rebels of launching an attack with "toxic gas" on the northern city in what health official Ziad Hajj Taha said was a "probable" chlorine attack. On Saturday, an AFP photographer saw men, women and children being treated at an Aleppo hospital for breathing difficulties. Some were sitting, while others lay down, breathing through with oxygen masks. The regime controls Aleppo city, but rebels and jihadists are present to the west of the city in the country's last major opposition bastion of Idlib.

But a rebel coalition there yesterday denied involvement. "We at the National Liberation Front deny the criminal, lying regime's allegations that revolutionaries targeted the city of Aleppo with any missiles and especially not any containing chlorine gas," it said. Other groups in the area include the jihadist-dominated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance and the Al-Qaeda-linked Hurras al-Deen group, neither of whom have commented on the alleged attack. Over the course of Syria's seven-year war, international human rights groups have repeatedly accused belligerents-especially the regime-of carrying out chemical attacks. The conflict has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions, according to the Observatory.

Russia strikes targets

Meanwhile, Russia yesterday said it had launched strikes on Syrian "terrorist" groups it accused of carrying out a chlorine attack the previous day. "Air strikes were carried out by Russian air force planes," defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in comments reported by TASS state news agency. Russia's defense ministry spokesman said earlier that Syrian rebel fighters used chemical weapons containing chlorine in an attack Saturday on the regime-held city of Aleppo.

Russia carried out strikes after identifying the attackers' positions and finding evidence they could use such weapons again, Konashenkov said. "As a result of the strikes, all of the rebel fighter targets were destroyed," he added. Russia's defense spokesman said earlier that the shells fired at residential areas of Aleppo were "filled with chlorine", calling this a preliminary conclusion backed up by the victims' symptoms. On Saturday evening, "terrorist groups" in an area of the Idlib buffer zone controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham jihadist group fired grenade launchers loaded with "explosives apparently containing chlorine", Konashenkov said. Russian military chemists have arrived in the area to help victims and monitor the situation, Konashenkov said.- Agencies