A man, wounded in what the government said was a chemical weapons attack, is treated at a hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo
BEIRUT: Syria’s government and rebels accused each other of launching a deadly chemical attack near the northern city of Aleppo yesterday in what would, if confirmed, be the first use of such weapons in the two-year conflict.
US President Barack Obama, who has resisted overt military intervention in Syria, has warned President Bashar Al Assad that any use of chemical weapons would be a “red line”. There has, however, been no suggestion of rebels possessing such arms.
Syria’s state television said rebels fired a rocket carrying chemical agents that killed 25 people and wounded dozens. The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, said 16 soldiers were among the dead.
The most notorious use of chemical weapons in the Middle East in recent history was in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja where an estimated 5,000 people died in a poison gas attack ordered by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 25 years ago.
No Western governments or international organisations confirmed a chemical attack in Syria, but Russia, an ally of Damascus, accused rebels of carrying out such a strike.
Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Meqdad, said his government would send a letter to the UN Security Council “calling on it to handle its responsibilities and clarify a limit to these crimes of terrorism and those that support it inside Syrian Arab Republic”.
He warned that the violence that had engulfed Syria was a regional threat.
Reuters
