BEIRUT, LEBANON (00:11 A.M.) – The rebel group Failaq Al-Rahman of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) accused the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) of carrying out an attack with chlorine gas in Ayn Tarma, Damascus on Friday. They voiced their claim only four days after the US White House released a statement, warning that a chemical attack was imminent and vowing to make the Syrian government “pay a heavy price” if another such incident was to take place.
The last time allegations of a chemical attack by the SAA were voiced mainly via various social media accounts of the Syrian opposition, the U.S. President Donald Trump took them as a reason, to bomb the Shayrat airbase used by the Syrian Airforce and Russian troops alike with 59 Tomahawk missiles.
The allegations seem questionable since the U.N. announced in June 2014 that the Syrian government had voluntarily destroyed all chemical weapons and in their possession and all means for their production within the framework of an agreement with the U.N..
While the Syrian conflict in 2017 has already seen multiple bombings carried out by US forces against the SAA and its allies, especially in Syria’s south-east around the Al-Tanf border crossing held by FSA forces supported by embedded US troops, any such allegations are alarming. The US are infamous for using allegations of attacks labeled inhumane and possession of chemical weapons as a pretense to invade nations, as they did for example already twice with neighbouring Iraq.
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