More alleged chemical attacks feared in Syria

Striking the Syrian army on the pretext of its chemical attack against civilians without substantial evidence gives ultra radical groups a reason to stage future attacks to attract more strikes on Syrian forces, analysts say.

On April 4, an alleged chemical attack struck the town of Khan Sheikhoun, which is controlled by the Front for Liberating the Levant, previously known as the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

The attack was followed by massive civilian poisoning, with activists reporting the death of 74 people and the injury of 557 others.

The United States and its Western allies were quick to accuse the Syrian government of carrying out airstrikes with chemical substance, later reported to be sarin agent.

The Syrian government completely rejected the accusations, saying it is not in possession of chemical weapons and that there was no need to resort to such option as the Syrian army was advancing and using such tactic will do a big harm.

Officials said the attack was staged to attract a fresh Western wreath on the administration of President Bashar al-Assad.

On the morning of April 7, the United States launched 59 missiles on a Syrian air base of Shayrat in Homs Province in central Syria, in retaliation for the alleged chemical attack.

Observers and officials in Syria said the strike was so quick with no dust of investigation settling down, as it was basically based on allegations.

"How could they reach the conclusion so fast without evidence, particularly that Syria has been in a war for over six years, and there are plenty of complex rebel groups with variant background and staging such attack could be easy by any group," Maher Ihsan, a political analyst, told Xinhua.

The Syrian army said it struck areas in Idlib, adding that one of the targets was a weapon depot of the al-Qaida-linked militants and it was apparently stocked with toxic materials.

The Syrian government made it clear that it welcomes an investigation team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to look into the attack, but such team never showed up.

In a recent interview with Russian media outlets, Assad said there was no toxic attack in Khan Sheikhoun town, charging that the United States and the Western powers have prevented an investigation team from going to Syria to look into the allegation because the team will find all the narrative about what happened in Khan Sheikhoun was mere lies."

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad also rejected the allegations that the toxic materials were mounted on warplanes from the Shayrat air base, which was struck by the U.S. missiles, saying there was no trace of any chemical material when the air base was struck.

Observers agree that the responsibility of the attack was quickly assigned to the government forces, with Russian and Syrian officials warning that this will embolden the rebels into staging similar attacks in the future to attract new military strikes by the U.S., particularly since the opposition has highly appreciated the U.S. missile attack and demanded more.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed that information shows the rebels in the countryside of the capital Damascus were planning to carry out a toxic attack in the hope of seeing new U.S. strikes on the Syrian military positions.

He said the Idlib chemical attack was a false flag to set Assad up, and more may come.

On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry voiced concerns over the information about an imminent attack near Damascus, fearing that a similar scenario as in Khan Sheikhoun could happen.

The Russian ministry also charged that the Western countries fear to undertake a fair unbiased investigation into the Khan Sheikhoun attack "because that will expose their allegations about the responsibility of Damascus."

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said battles in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun will cease when experts arrive to investigate the alleged chemical attack.

"After an address from the Ministry of Defense, the Syrian command expressed its readiness to stop any military activity in the area, if a special experts mission will come to investigate the events on April 4 in Khan Sheikhoun," the ministry said, as cited by RIA Novosti news agency.

A complete cease-fire will be declared "to ensure safe work for the experts," it added.

The comment came days after Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said a Russian-Iranian proposal to investigate the attack "was blocked by Western delegations without any explanation," even though the proposal was amended to conform to the Western demands that the existing OPCW fact-finding mission conduct the investigation.

Meanwhile, Syrian mainstream media is playing the old records of President George W. Bush alleging the existence of chemical weapons in Iraq, when the U.S. invaded the country in 2003 over claims later proved to be wrong.

"If the rebels, or even the Western countries, mainly the U.S., want to strike the Syrian army they could use this pretext again," said Ihsan.