Russia: White Helmets, militants preparing false-flag chemical attacks in Syria

Russia has warned that members of the Takfiri Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist outfit together with the so-called civil defense group White Helmets are planning to carry out chemical attacks across Syria in a bid to incriminate Syrian government forces and invent pretexts for possible acts of aggression on army troops.

“Via several channels, we received confirmation of reports that militants from the group of field commander Abu Malek, which is a part of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, jointly with the White Helmets organization, plan to carry out provocations involving staged air raids and use of chemical weapons in populated areas of the Idlib de-escalation zone,” Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement released on Tuesday.

It added, “Militants have been selecting local residents who would participate in the filming of scenes depicting the consequences of airstrikes and use of poisonous agents.”

The statement further noted that the residents of the town of Sarmada in the extreme northwest of Syria had seen a group of unidentified people and three trucks transporting various containers with unknown chemicals arriving in the area earlier this month.

“One of the vehicles carried professional video equipment and fragments of air and artillery shells with Soviet and Russian identification marks,” the statement pointed out.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also highlighted that the militants are planning to make falsified footage of civilian facilities allegedly destroyed in airstrikes, artillery shelling and chemical attacks in Idlib province, and then publish the videos on social media to blame the Syrian government and Russia for their actions against civilians.

SS