Helicopters dropped containers of toxic gas overnight on a town in Syria’s Idlib province, a rescue service operating in rebel-held territory said on Tuesday.
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But US officials say the operation’s goal is to evacuate civilians from the city so they can then attack the rebels holding out there. “The Syrian Civil Defense was not able to determine the type of the gas”.
The Syrian government and its Russian allies were not immediately available for comment.
The Syrian government, backed by Russian Federation, launched a large-scale humanitarian relief operation in Aleppo on Friday and created corridors providing civilians and the militants, who chose to surrender, the opportunity to leave the city.
The Syrian government has not yet released a statement, according to Reuters, but Assad has denied previous charges of being involved in chemical attacks on the town.
Russian Federation escalated its military involvement in Syria in September 2015 to help keep Assad in power, relying mainly on airpower to target rebel forces.
A Russian military helicopter was shot down yesterday over the Syrian province of Idlib with all five people on board believed to have been killed, the Kremlin said.
On Monday, Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military’s General Staff announced that the Syrian army, relying on Russian air cover, had fended off a militant attack meant to break the government’s blockade of the rebel-held part of Aleppo.
No group has claimed responsibility for downing the helicopter. So far, no person or body has claimed responsibility for this shooting, and Russian Federation has not pointed out who might be responsible for it.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said fighters were killed on both sides in battles around the southern al-Ramouseh and al-Amerieh neighborhoods of the city, but did not have exact figures. The group said several people were hospitalised due to the effects of the gas.
This is now Russia’s third helicopter lost in the Syrian operation.
United Nations investigators found that sarin gas was used in a 2013 attack in Eastern Ghouta, where over 1420 people were killed.
However, the Syrian state news agency SANA later accused rebels of firing rockets armed with toxic gas into government-controlled areas of nearby Aleppo, killing at least five people.
The strikes were aimed at slowing a “last-chance” assault by rebels seeking to break a government siege of the city.
Rebel spokesman Abdul-Salam Abdul-Razzek said there had been fierce fighting with government forces near al-Ramouseh, along a strategic government-controlled highway and artillery base south of Aleppo.
It said nine people, including three children, were killed on Monday and 11 people died in attacks on Sunday.
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Syrian jets also struck rebel-held Sukari, Seif al Dawlah and Salah al Deen neighborhoods in stepped-up raids on residential areas, rebels said.
