Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday that a Syrian airstrike targeting militant workshops producing chemical weapons was responsible for the deaths of at least 72 civilians in the northern Idlib province.
The strike targeted a “terrorist ammunition storage facility” on the outskirts of the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, where the deaths occurred Tuesday, said Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
“The territory of this storage facility housed workshops to produce projectiles stuffed with toxic agents,” Konashenkov said. He said militants sent the chemical weapons from the site to Iraq.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Wednesday that “all the evidence” suggests the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad carried out a chemical attack “in the full knowledge that they were using illegal weapons in a barbaric attack on their own people.”
Syria denies using poisonous gases and said the army does not possess chemical weapons, state media reported. It said rebels and their supporters "fabricated fake accusations against the armed forces in the Syrian Arab Republic," the SANA news agency reported.
The United Nations Security Council called an emergency session for Wednesday to discuss the attack. A Syrian opposition group said renewed airstrikes hit Khan Sheikhoun on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.
Pope Francis said Wednesday that he “strongly deplored the unacceptable massacre" “and was "watching with horror at the latest events in Syria.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring group, said 72 people died Tuesday, including 20 children. Syrian opposition health minister Firas Jundi put the death toll at more than 100 civilians and said 500 others, mostly children, were sickened or burned by the gas.
The deaths occurred after either chlorine or the nerve agent sarin shrouded parts of Khan Sheikhoun. Human rights reports said the gas appeared to be a virulent deadly strain and covered a wider area than past attacks, with many victims collapsing outdoors.
Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that "more than 60 people, including young children - vomited and gasped for air before they were choked to death - likely at the hands of the Syrian regime."
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the assault, which burned hundreds of others, "cannot be ignored by the civilized world." He steered blame at the Obama administration in part for "weakness and irresolution" toward Syria. The Trump administration is assessing what action it would take.
If it is confirmed as a chemical attack, it would be the largest in Syria since August 2013, when sarin gas killed hundreds of civilians in Ghouta near Damascus. Reuters reported that the U.S. government believes Sarin may have also been used in the attack Tuesday.
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