Strike on town hit with chemical weapons kills 1

Syrian opposition activists say warplanes have struck a northern town where a chemical attack killed scores of people earlier this week killing one person and wounding another.

Another problem with the Assad gas attack narrative is that the USA government, along with Russia and the United Nations, supervised the destruction of Syria’s stockpile of banned chemical weapons in 2013-2014, under an agreement brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin to call off a previous planned U.S. missile strike on Syria, under the Obama administration.

Even second-hand exposure to sarin, the nerve agent suspected in the attack, can produce symptoms leading to death.

The attack occurred in the Shuaib al-Zeker area, near where USA -backed Syrian fighters have been battling IS under the cover of coalition airstrikes. “I am not supporting anybody”, she said.

The tragedy has devastated the small town. The Syrian government is denying any responsibility for this week’s assault. His father went outside then rushed back in.

A second senior military official described how Russian personnel were closely enmeshed in the day-to-day operations at Shayrat, although he could not say if the Russians knew for sure that the Syrian jet that unleashed the attack was carrying a chemical payload.

Ajak said Trump’s attack came as a surprise after an insufficient worldwide response to the Ghouta chemical attack in 2013, which killed more than 1,400 civilians. “They are all dead now”, said Abdel Hameed Alyousef, who cradled his deceased 9-month old twins in each arm.

“Now, it has become a field for our bodies”, he said.

The wounded were taken from Idlib through Turkey’s Cilvegozu border gate for treatment in the town of Reyhanli just north of the Syrian border.

Ahead of disarmament, Assad’s government disclosed it had some 1,300 tons of chemical weapons, including sarin, VX nerve agent and mustard gas.

“I am crying, but these are tears of joy”, Youssef says, explaining that his children are now with God, and that is better than being in Syria.

“But it does lift the morale of the families of the dead”, he said.

Khan Sheikhoun, was hit on Friday and Saturday as well.

“All of a sudden my head started to ache, and I realized that the strike contained a poisonous chemical”, he said.

In September 2015, the image of a lifeless 3-year-old Syrian boy washed ashore on a Turkish beach echoed around the world. The groups Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently and Sound and Picture said the attack killed a woman and her six children.

“The foam filled their mouths, their eyes were red, and they were bleeding from the nose”, he said, speaking from a town near Khan Sheikhoun.

Payne said the most important thing now is to condemn the attack.

Guzel reported from Hatay, Turkey.