|
Syrian rebel group attack Aleppo using chemical weapons
[ARA News]. Aleppo – Syrian Islamist rebels launched on Friday an offensive on a Kurdish district in the northern city of Aleppo, using chemical gas, eyewitnesses and activists reported.Fighters from the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham –formerly al-Nusra Front– reportedly shelled the Kurdish district with rockets that contained mustard gas. The offensive killed at least six people, including two children. Also, more than 15 suffocation cases were reported in the Kurdish district subsequent to the attack. “The wounded were immediately transferred to a makeshift hospital run by the Kurdish Red Crescent in Sheikh Maqsoud,” a local media activist told ARA News. Doctor Mihemed Hamke, the director of a hospital in Sheikh Maqsoud, said that the initial investigation showed that the victims were exposed to a chemical agent during the shelling on Friday. “The injured suffered suffocation, skin burning and vomiting. These are obvious symptoms of exposure to mustard gas,” Dr Hamke told ARA News. Sheikh Maqsoud has been under siege by Syrian Islamists for over three years. Violence has recently intensified in the district as Kurdish People’s Protect Units (YPG) have tried to establish a buffer zone. “Armed groups surrounding the Sheikh Maqsoud district of Aleppo city have repeatedly carried out indiscriminate attacks that have struck civilian homes, streets, markets and mosques, killing and injuring civilians and displaying a shameful disregard for human life,” Amnesty International said in an earlier report about the developments in the Kurdish district. This is not the first for the Syrian Islamist rebels to attack Sheikh Maqsoud with chemical weapons. On March 8, 2016, the same groups hit the Kurdish district with phosphorus agent, causing dozens of casualties among civilians. “Radical groups launched dozens of rockets filled with yellow phosphorus element,” the Kurdish YPG leadership said in a statement at the time. Human rights activist Rezan Hiddo appealed to the international community and human rights organizations to intervene and stop the fierce attack on the Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud. “We do not see any sympathy with the Kurdish civilians who suffer under those barbaric chemical attacks in Aleppo,” Hiddo told ARA News. “Lives of hundreds of Kurdish children are at risk,” he said, adding that Sheikh Maqsoud district suffers a sharp shortage of medicine. From Al Manar via Russian Today: Russia: New Evidence of Chemical Warfare against Aleppo Civilians [AlManar] Russian said on Friday that its military experts have reported finding new evidence of chemical warfare against Syrian civilians in Aleppo. The Defense Ministry said an unexploded mortar shell uncovered in Aleppo contained mustard gas, Russia Today reported. Ammunition containing the chemical agent was reportedly used in a devastating attack on a village in the Aleppo province conducted back in September. “An express-analysis of the contents [of ammunition] carried out using a portable infrared spectrometer revealed the presence of vesicant chemical warfare agent sulfur mustard. We’ve taken roughly a 20 milliliter sample from the shell. Afterwards it was sealed tight and delivered to the Russian Center for reconciliation of opposing sides in the Syrian Arab Republic for further investigation,” a representative for Russian Troops of Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense (RChBD) told journalists. The recovered chemical round is a crude homemade 240-mm mortar shell, with a capsule in the rear. The capsule contained from 0.5 to 1.5 liters of a black oily liquid, which proved to be a chemical warfare agent. Over 40 people were injured in the attack they displayed typical symptoms of mustard gas poisoning. Russian experts previously produced evidence of chemical munitions usage by militants. On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that chlorine and white phosphorus had been found in nine samples from southwestern Aleppo. Posted by: badanov 2016-11-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=474168 |