The United States, Britain and France on Tuesday proposed a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the suspected chemical attack that killed dozens of civilians. Officials said the resolution will be deliberated over and put to vote on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The White House said the strike was carried out by the Bashar al-Assad’s government, even though there has been no confirmation yet.
The resolution says the local government must provide international investigators with flight plans and logs for Tuesday, the names of all helicopter squadron commanders and access to air bases where the suspected strikes were believed to have been launched from, the agency reported.
The United States government believes that deadly chemical agent, sarin, was used in the attack, an unidentified official told Reuters. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the suspected attack was a way to provoke the Donald Trump administration to specify its stance on Assad.
While condemning the incident as the result of the “heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime”, Trump accused the Barack Obama administration of “weak policies” in connection with the Syrian civil.
“We deny completely the use of any chemical or toxic material in Khan Sheikhoun town today and the army has not used nor will use in any place or time neither in past or in future,” a statement by the Syrian Army said. Russian forces, too, denied involvement in the attack.
A monitoring group, medical staff and rescue workers corroborated reports about the attack on civilians in rebel-held Idlib. Reports about the number of casualties differed. While the administrator of the local authority pegged the toll at 50, the Union of Medical Care Organizations said at least 100 people were killed in the strike. UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, however, said at least 58 people were killed. The attack caused many people to “choke and some to foam at the mouth”, said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the group.
In September 2016, the Syrian government was accused of dropping barrel bombs containing chlorine that killed more than 80 civilians in the Sukari area of Aleppo.
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