Thread: At least 100 dead in suspected chemical attack

At least 100 dead in suspected chemical attack in Syria, hospital reportedly hit

Published April 04, 2017 FoxNews.com

A suspected chemical attack in a rebel-held Syrian town killed 100 people and injured 400 others, a medical relief group said, and some medics treating the wounded were later struck by rubble when an aircraft reportedly bombed a hospital.

SYRIA: MORE WAR CRIMES, MORE PEACE TALKS -- AND MORE RADICALIZATION BY RUSSIAN DESIGN

A hospital in Syria's northern Idlib province was hit soon after the area was bombarded with a suspected chemical agent, an AFP correspondent reported.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said there were 11 children among the dead. The Syrian medical relief group UOSSM reported that the overall death toll had been elevated to 100, according to Reuters.

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Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says it is examining allegations of at least 8 gas attacks in Syria since start of 2017 https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/849205930281517056 …
4:41 AM - 4 Apr 2017

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HALEY: ASSAD A 'WAR CRIMINAL' PROTECTED BY RUSSIA, IRAN

Mohammed Rasoul, the head of a Syrian ambulance service, told the BBC that first responders found people choking in the streets.

"Our team is still there, moving patients from one place to another because of overcrowded hospitals," he said. "I am speaking to my team and they are doing fine, but the situation over there is very bad and most of those who are suffering are children."

The media center published footage of medical workers appearing to intubate an unresponsive man stripped down to his underwear and hooking up a little girl foaming at the mouth to a ventilator.

SLIDESHOW: HEARTBREAKING IMAGES OF GAS ATTACK VICTIMS

There was no comment from the government in Damascus or any international agency in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

It was the third claim of a chemical attack in just over a week in Syria. The previous two were reported in Hama province, in an area not far from Khan Sheikhoun, the site of Tuesday's alleged attack.

Tuesday's reports came on the eve of a major international meeting in Brussels on the future of Syria and the region, to be hosted by the EU's High Representative Federica Mogherini.

The Syrian American Medical Society, which supports hospitals in opposition-held territory, said it had sent a team of inspectors to Khan Sheikhoun before noon and an investigation was underway.

The Syrian activists had no information on what agent could have been used in the assault. They claimed the attack was caused by an airstrike carried out either by the Syrian government or Russian warplanes.

It was also not immediately clear if all those killed died from suffocation or wounds sustained in the airstrikes. Makeshift hospitals soon crowded with people suffocating, activist said.

Mohammed Hassoun, a media activist in nearby Sarmin -- also in Idlib province where some of the critical cases were transferred -- said the hospital there is equipped to deal with such chemical attacks because the town was also struck, early on in the Syrian uprising. The Sarmin hospital is about 31 miles away from the scene of the attack.

"Because of the number of wounded, they have been distributed around in rural Idlib," he told The Associated Press by phone. "There are 18 critical cases here. They were unconscious, they had seizures and when oxygen was administered, they bled from the nose and mouth."

Hassoun, who is documenting the attack for the medical society, said the doctors there have said it is likely more than one gas.

"Chlorine gas doesn't cause such convulsions," he said, adding that doctors suspect sarin was used.

Hussein Kayal, a photographer for the Idlib Media Center, said he was awoken by the sound of a bomb blast around 6:30 a.m. When he arrived at the scene there was no smell, he said.

He found entire families inside their homes, lying on the floor, eyes wide open and unable to move. Their pupils were constricted. He put on a mask, he said. Kayal said he and other witnesses took victims to an emergency room, and removed their clothes and washed them in water.

He said he felt a burning sensation in his fingers and was treated for that.

A Turkey-based Syrian man whose niece, her husband and one-year-old daughter were among those killed, said the warplanes struck early, as residents were still in their beds. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for the safety of family members back in Syria.

The province of Idlib is almost entirely controlled by the Syrian opposition. It is home to some 900,000 displaced Syrians, according to the United Nations. Rebels and opposition officials have expressed concerns that the government is planning to mount a concentrated attack on the crowded province.

Claims of chemical weapons attacks, particularly the use of the chlorine agent, are not uncommon in Syria's conflict. The worst attack was what a U.N. report said was an attack by toxic sarin gas in August 2013 on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta that killed hundreds of civilians.

The Syrian Coalition, an opposition group based outside the country, said government planes carried out the airstrike on Khan Sheikhoun, south of the city of Idlib, the provincial capital.

It said the planes fired missiles carrying poisonous gases, killing dozens of people, many of them women and children. The coalition described the attack as a "horrifying massacre."

Photos and video emerging from Khan Sheikhoun show limp bodies of children and adults. Some are seen struggling to breathe; others appear foaming at the mouth.

A medical doctor going by the name of Dr. Shajul Islam for fears for his own safety said his hospital in Idlib province received three victims, all with narrow, pinpoint pupils that did not respond to light. He published video of the patients on his Twitter account.

Pinpoint pupils, breathing difficulties, and foaming at the mouth are symptoms commonly associated with toxic gas exposure.

The opposition's Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, which released photos showing paramedics washing down victims, has not published a casualty toll.

The activist-run Assi Press published video of paramedics carrying victims from the scene by a pickup truck. The victims were stripped down to their underwear. Many appeared unresponsive.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused the Syrian government of conducting at least eight chemical attacks using chlorine gas on opposition-controlled residential areas during the final months in the battle for Aleppo last year that killed at least nine civilians and injured 200.

Also, a joint investigation by the United Nations and the international chemical weapons watchdog determined the Syrian government was behind at least three attacks in 2014 and 2015 involving chlorine gas and the Islamic State group was responsible for at least one involving mustard gas.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/04...vists-say.html

I don't believe these gas stories. They don't kill a hundred, they kill thousands.

We can't believe any news anymore, from anywhere, about anything.

White House blames Obama admin for suspected Syria chemical attack

• By LENA MASRI

Apr 4, 2017, 1:48 PM ET

Edlib Media Center, via AP

WATCH
White House blames Obama admin for suspected Syria chemical attack

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday that a suspected chemical attack in a Syrian town was a "consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution."

"Today's attack is reprehensible and cannot be ignored by the civilized world," Spicer told reporters. "These heinous actions by the Bashar al Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution. President Obama said in 2012 that he'd establish a red line against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing. The US stands with our allies across the globe to condemn this intolerable act."

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan at the Department of State, ignored questions from reporters about the alleged chemical attack.

The alleged gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in northern Syria killed at least 58 civilians, including 11 children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring group.

The attack appeared to involve a gas that caused victims to choke and faint, according to the observatory, the Syria Civil Defense and residents. Warplanes later struck the same town again, hitting a hospital where some of the victims were being treated.

“What moved us most was when we entered a house and saw a whole family -- a father, a mother and four children killed because of the chemical attack,” Abdullah al Hussein, a Syria Civil Defense volunteer, who was at the scene, told ABC News in a voice recording in Arabic. “They had been asleep. They were in their beds. The truth is that what happened today was painful in all meanings of the word.”

He said that many were still asleep when the attack happened. He saw more than 100 injured and at least 20 bodies of children, women and men at one of the hospitals tasked with treating the wounded, he said.

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Muneer, a school teacher who lives in Khan Sheikhoun, said he was alone at home when he heard the attack.

“I hid in the corner of the room,” Muneer, who asked that his last name not be published for security concerns, told ABC News via a messaging app in Arabic. He said he lives in the center of the town and the attack took place in the northern part. When he later tried to approach the area that was struck, people told him not to go any further. “They warned me that I would faint if I came close,” he said, “so I stopped walking.”

He said schools were closed today.

Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images
An unconscious Syrian child receives treatment at a hospital in Khan Sheikhun, a rebel-held town in the northwestern Syrian Idlib province, following a suspected chemical attack on April 4, 2017.more +

“The hospital in Khan Sheikhoun was filled with injured, children, women and men and a smell of chlorine was filling the place,” Mohammad Alshagel, a media activist with the Aleppo Media Center who visited the hospital, told ABC News. “The injured had heavy choking symptoms and some of them died five minutes after arriving even though medical staff tried to help them.” He said the hospital was attacked after he left.

Alshagel said he has witnessed the aftermath of several chemical attacks in Aleppo, but they were not as bad as this one.

“It was a horrible scene. Children were crying, asking for their parents who had died and women were screaming,” he said.

Raed al Saleh, the head of the White Helmets, told ABC News that five rockets also hit the volunteer group’s center in the town, destroying equipment.

Yesterday, an airstrike hit a hospital near Khan Sheikhoun, injuring at least one patient and one nurse, according to the Syrian American Medical Society.

Today’s attack comes after two other recent suspected chemical attacks in Syria. On March 30, barrel bombs containing chemical agents injured 166 civilians and seven medical staff in Hama in western Syria, according to SAMS. On March 25, two people were killed, including Ali Darwish, a specialist orthopedic surgeon, in another chemical attack on a hospital in Hama, said SAMS.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=46567048

White House condemns Syria chemical attack, blames Assad




WASHINGTON: The White House condemned what it called a "reprehensible" and "intolerable" chemical attack in Syria Tuesday and pinned the blame squarely on Bashar al-Assad´s regime.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said an "extremely alarmed" President Donald Trump had been briefed extensively on the attack, and suggested it was in the "best interest" of the Syrians for Assad not to lead the country.

"Today´s chemical attack in Syria against innocent people, including women and children, is reprehensible," Spicer said, adding that the administration was "confident" in its assessment that Assad was to blame.

Spicer said it was a "political reality" that Assad is in power and there was no "fundamental option of regime change."

But the White House comments signaled a tougher tone against the Russian and Iranian-supported regime in Damascus.

"The idea that someone would use chemical weapons on their own people, including women and children, is not something that any civilized nation should sit back and accept or tolerate," he said.

"I think it´s in the best interest of the Syrian people to not have anybody who would do the kind of heinous acts," said Spicer.

"Any leader who treats their people with this kind of activity, death and destruction. Yeah. I don´t think anyone would wish this upon anybody."

The suspected chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun in Syria´s northwest Idlib province has left at least 58 civilians dead, including 11 children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Syrian army has categorically denied involvement.
Spicer refused to speculate on how the US would respond. "I´m not ready to talk about our next step, but we will get there soon."

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/19...k-blames-Assad

If it happened, Assad didn't do this. These "chemical attack" stories look false to me. I think they're fake news stories created by the Anti-Assad forces in Syria.