Russia’s MOD: Al-nusra Militants Are Planning Staged Provocation With Toxic Substances In Idlib, Syria

The Russian Ministry of Defence has revealed it possess information indicating that Jabhat al-Nusra militants are preparing an attack on civilians in the in de-escalation zones in Idlib, with explosive shells laced with toxic substances.

Speaking to a Briefing on Wednesday, Deputy Chief of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria, Oleg Yegorov, said that “the terrorists intend to organize a provocation in order to accuse the Syrian government forces of using poisonous substances against the civilian population.”

According to Yegorov, Al-nusra militants had already constructed 36 such laced rocket propelled explosives in the mountains of South Idlib. Russia’s MOD has also previously and repeatedly stressed that terrorist groups hostile to the Assad government, have the required laboratories for the processing of toxic chemicals that can be used in munitions.

Additionally, it has stressed that these labs are run by scientists trained by Western intelligence agencies, who work toward the purpose of staging fabricated chemical attacks against civilians, which would be falsely attributed to the Syrian Arab Army. Back in August, Yegorov also levelled avvusations Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham militants and the Western Backed ‘White Helmets’, of preparing staged videos in Idlib, to accuse Syria and Russia of launching strikes on civilians.

While Western analysts and officials will likely scoff at Yegorov’s assessment, his convictions are backed up by evidence surrounding previous alleged chemical attacks against civilians by Syrian forces, not least the incident in April Douma 2018. In March 2019, an OPCW Report seemingly substantiated the claims of Islamist militants and NATO nations, that the Syrian military had killed approximately 40 civilians with chlorine gas cylinders in Douma, in April 2018.

However, by May 2019, an internal OPCW engineering assessment was leaked to the public, which was authored by Ian Henderson, an inspection leader and engineer with the OPCW for 12 years, who worked on the ground during the fact finding mission in Douma.

In the assessment, Henderson writes that “the “dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders” in Douma, “were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder having been delivered from an aircraft.” He also follows up by stating that there is “a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft.”

Thus far, investigations indicate that chemical attacks and false flag exercises in Syria have been carried out by Western funded and armed jihadist proxies on the ground in Syria. This dynamic of supporting extremists is also mirrored in Ukraine, with the collective West’s backing of neo-fascist Ukrainian forces, such as the infamous Azov and Aidar battalions.

Therefore as tensions rise globally around the potential use of a dirty bomb in Ukraine, and with both Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of intent to use such a weapon, it is worth noting this example from Syria, as a reminder that the true authors of the playbook on such treacherous methods of warfare, have been indeed been the collective West and it’s proxies.