EA World View
President Assad’s warplanes have reportedly carried out another chlorine attack, this time in Syria’s largest city Aleppo.
White Helmets rescuers and pro-opposition activists initially said two people were killed and nine people were injured in the strike on the Zebdia neighborhood. Photographs showed children being treated for breathing difficulties.
Later, the Swiss-based medical charity UOSSM says three people died and dozens suffered breathing difficulties, including 25 under five years old.
Ten days ago, regime helicopters reportedly dropped chlorine canisters on Saraqeb in Idlib Province, amid almost two weeks of almost constant attacks after a Russian helicopter was shot down. Up to 30 people were injured. Russia tried to counter attention to the assault with the unsupported assertion that rebels carries out their own attack with “toxic gases”.
The Assad regime has regularly used chlorine canisters inside barrel bombs, particularly after it was forced to hand over chemical weapons following its August 2013 attack with sarin gas that killed at least 1,400 people near Damascus.
Chlorine is not banned under international chemical weapons conventions.