TERRORIST organisations positioned in Aleppo countryside have fired shells containing toxic gases on the neighbourhoods of al-Khalidyia, al-Neel Street and Jam’ayat al-Zahra in Aleppo City.
Chief of Aleppo Police Major General Issam al-Shilli said in a statement that terrorist groups on Saturday evening targeted residential neighbourhoods in Aleppo City with explosive rocket shells that contain toxic gases. Al-Shilli added that many cases of asphyxiation were reported among civilians who were transported to al-Razi Hospital and the University Hospital to provide the required treatment to them due to the corrosive substances which they smelt, indicating that the medical teams are following up the required measures to treat them.
Inspecting the process of providing treatment for the victims, Aleppo Governor Hussein Diab said that this attack reaffirms that the terrorist organisations possess toxic gases. Diab called upon the international community to shoulder its responsibilities towards the civilians, particularly the children, the elderly and women.
For his part, Director of Aleppo Health Directorate Ziad Haj Taha said that 50 civilians including children and women suffered from asphyxiation due to the terrorist attack with shells that contain toxic gases on residential neighbourhoods in Aleppo City. He indicated that the number of civilian casualties in the attack is not final and it is expected to rise, adding that the gas used by terrorists is more likely to be the chlorine gas due to the symptoms shown by the hospitalised civilians.
Later, medical sources at al-Razi Hospital and the University Hospital said that 107 civilians were admitted to them as they were suffering from asphyxiation cases of various degrees ranging from light to medium and some of them were admitted to the intensive care units.
Army units operating in Aleppo retaliated through targeting the areas from which the shells were fired, inflicting heavy losses upon the terrorists. This attack on residential neighbourhoods with shells containing toxic gases comes a few days after people said that French terrorists arrived in Idleb through the borders with Turkey to supply missiles with toxic gases with the aim of using them inside the Syrian territories.
• The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the terrorists’ attack on Aleppo should be unconditionally condemned by international community. The Head of the Defence Committee at Duma Council Gen. Vladimir Shamanov said that the terrorist attack on Aleppo City with shells containing chlorine ‘should become the focus of attention by the international organisations, on top the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).’
‘The OPCW should express a direct response to these events in Aleppo and shouldn’t be preoccupied with directing plays for the (White Helmets) … and they should immediately head for the site of these events, but it seems that they don’t do that,’ Shamanov added.
The Russian Parliamentarian noted that the absence of a reaction by the OPCW towards this attack represents a ‘farcical and clear play for all which proves the bias of the international organisations which don’t implement their official duties, but they work according to political approaches, and this is what they shouldn’t do.’ He affirmed that not prosecuting the offenders increases the violations of law.
• The Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry stressed that attacking residential neighbourhoods in Aleppo City by terrorist organisations came as a result of facilitating terrorists’ access to chemical substances by some states, calling for taking deterrent and punitive measures against the states and regimes which support and fund terrorism.
In letters sent to the UN Secretary-General, the Security Council’s President and the Director-General of the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Ministry said … ‘On Nov. 24th 2018, armed terrorist groups attacked with toxic gases safe residential neighbourhoods in Aleppo City as they targeted the neighbourhoods of al-Khalidyia, al-Hamadanyia, al-Shahba, al-Neel Street and Jam’ayat al-Zahra in Aleppo City with tens of mortar shells filled with chlorine as 107 civilians suffered from suffocation and very dangerous cases of poisoning, mostly women, children and elderly people, in addition to the damages inflicted on the public and private properties in the targeted areas.’
‘This terrorist act comes as a result of facilitating terrorists’ access to chemical substances by some states with the aim of using them against the Syrian people and accusing the Syrian Government of that through plays whose scenario had been previously prepared at the black rooms of the intelligence of some states which sponsor terrorism and these plays are carried out by terrorists of the (White Helmets) who are also involved in this terrorist act as the shells were fired from areas where they are active and in particular from the southeastern area of al-Braikyiat village in Aleppo countryside,’ The Ministry added.
The Ministry concluded its letters by saying: ‘The Syrian Arab Republic’s Government demands the Security Council to immediately and strongly condemn these terrorist crimes and to shoulder its responsibilities in preserving the international peace and security through taking deterrent, immediate and punitive measures against the states and regimes which support and fund terrorism and to prevent them from going far in supporting terrorism and tampering with the international peace and security and to force them to fully implement the provisions of the Security Council’s relevant resolutions No.2170/2014/2178/2014/2199/2015/2253/2015.’
• Syria’s foreign ministry has called on the UN Security Council to condemn the recent chemical attack carried out by the foreign-backed militants in the northern city of Aleppo. ‘The Syrian government calls on the Security Council to immediately and strongly condemn these terrorist crimes … (and take) deterrent, punitive measures against the nations and regimes that support and fund terrorism,’ the foreign ministry said in a statement.
‘The terrorist attack in Aleppo is the result of the efforts by certain countries which sponsor terrorists groups,’ it added. Foreign-backed militant groups have launched a chemical attack against a neighbourhood in Aleppo, injuring scores of people. The attack hit al-Khalidiya neighbourhood in the government-held city on Saturday, foreign news agencies and state television reported, saying close to 50 people have been hospitalised.
Doctors said most of those admitted to hospitals have breathing problems and blurred vision. State TV showed footage of medical professionals treating men and women on hospital beds. There was a stench of gas in Aleppo city after projectiles were fired, head of the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdurrahman. Health official Haj Taha said symptoms suggested that the poisonous gas used was chlorine.
Paul Larudee, a senior member of the Syria Solidarity Movement, believes terrorist groups seek to provoke a foreign military intervention in Syria by launching gas attacks. According to Aleppo police chief Essam al-Shali, wind caused gas to spread and state TV later said the gas affected two other areas in the city but there were no deaths.
‘There are often missiles on the city but this is the first time we smelled such a smell,’ one patient said without giving his name. Government troops reportedly retaliated, hitting the source of the attack. Russia said the chemical attack had been launched from an area in the Idlib de-escalation zone controlled by Nusra Front militants.
In a statement, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it planned to talk to Turkey about the incident since Ankara was a guarantor of how the militants there upheld a ceasefire. ‘According to our preliminary information, confirmed in particular by symptoms of poisoning among the victims, the shells used to bombard residential areas of Aleppo were filled with chlorine (gas),’ Russian Major-General Igor Konashenkov said.
In the past, the United States and its allies have been using such attacks as pretexts to carry out missile strikes against Syria. The Russian military says terrorists carry chlorine canisters to a village in Syria’s Idlib to stage a false-flag attack.
The first such attack came in April 2017, when US President Donald Trump ordered US Navy warships in the Mediterranean to fire a total of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase. About a year later, Trump along with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Theresa May authorised a joint missile attack against alleged chemical weapons manufacturing sites inside Syria.
The latter attack, which came in response to what the US and its allies had insisted was another chemical attack in Douma on the outskirts of Damascus, saw 105 cruise missiles being fired from sea and air at Syrian government targets.
In September, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said his country had been in talks with France and Britain to orchestrate another military strike on Syria that would be ‘much stronger’ than the joint operation staged by the three allies.
John Bolton says the US, the UK and France are ready to carry out an attack on Syria that will dwarf their joint operation. Syria finished dismantling its stockpiles of chemical weapons in 2014 under a joint mission led by the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
