...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
(HTS) has transferred three cylinders containing chlorine gas to the southern Idlib countryside this week, Sputnik Arabic reported on Saturday.
According to the Russian publication, the jihadist rebels of the al-Nusra
...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ...
Front (referencing HTS) transferred these chemical weapons
...have not been used since WWI except for in Iraq, by the late, unlamented Saddam Hussein and in Syria, but really, honest, not by the Syrian government. And in Germany in WWII, but that was against civilians. Lots of them, just one of many reasons Hitler's also late and unlamented...to the town of Ma’arat al-Nu’man in southern Idlib and Saraqib in northeast Idlib.
Citing local sources, Sputnik Arabic said there are fears that the jihadist rebels will attempt to frame the Syrian Army to prompt an international response.
"Local sources in Idlib told Sputnik that button men from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which the al-Nusra terrorist organization uses as a front for it in Idlib, supervised leaders of the authority to remove several cylinders containing chlorine gas from the headquarters of the organization in the farms surrounding the cities of Saraqib and Ma`rat al-Numan, south of Idlib, amid tight security," the Russian publication reported.
Sputnik Arabic said their ’sources’ were members of the White Helmets organization, but did not provide more details.
"The sources added that the number of cylinders, which are likely to number 3, were handed over to ’experts’ of the Chechen and Belgian nationalities, who worked on transporting them by cycle of violences that took different routes at different times, apparently as a tactic to preserve the confidentiality of the destination the cylinders were transferred to," they said.
A similar claim was made by the publication last week, with similar sources mentioned in the report.