Terrorists use poisonous weapons against Syrian soldiers

Syria’s official news agency says foreign-backed terrorists have used “poisonous” weapons to attack government soldiers in a suburb of the country’s capital.

“Terrorist organizations yesterday attacked a Syrian Army position in Eastern Ghouta, in the Damascus countryside, using poisonous substances,” the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.

The materials “had effects on the nervous system which harmed a number of the troops by suffocation and respiratory problems,” it added.

Television footage, meanwhile, showed troops struggling to breathe, with one soldier saying those affected had experienced “a feeling of almost paralysis and an increase in saliva in the mouth.”

Another soldier, interviewed in hospital, said a "smoke bomb" landed and then he started to feel the symptoms.

Damascus surrendered its stockpiles of chemical weapons to a joint mission led by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) following an attack in Ghouta two years ago.

UN investigators established that sarin gas was used in Eastern Ghouta in the 2013 attack which allegedly killed 1,429 people, including at least 426 children.

The chemical attack came amid a red line set by the US to attack the Syrian government if it used chemical weapons in fighting foreign-backed militants.

According to reports, the rockets used in the assault were handmade and contained sarin.

Last December, Ahmed al-Gaddafi al-Qahsi, a cousin of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, alleged that the chemical weapons used in Ghouta were stolen from Libya and later smuggled into Syria via Turkey.

SS