MOSCOW, June 7. /TASS/. Russia is aware of attempts to stage new chemical attacks in Syria similar to the Khan Sheikhoun incident, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service chief Sergey Naryshkin told the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, on Wednesday.
"We know about attempts to prepare new fabricated events of this kind with the goal to blame Damascus and Moscow for them," Naryshkin said during the discussion on the interference in Russia’s domestic affairs.
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"The staged chemical attack in Syria’s Khan Sheikhoun on April 4 this year is well-known. Washington and its satellites have been persistently trying to hold Damascus accountable for it. There were also claims that Russia’s Aerospace Forces have been allegedly complicit or informed about it," Naryshkin said.
According to Naryshkin, during Barack Obama’s presidency the US State Department and the Department of Justice launched an effort to set up the so-called hybrid tribunal in the US on the war crimes allegedly committed by Damascus and Moscow during the Syrian conflict. "After the White House team changed, this activity was not halted," he noted.
The incident with the alleged use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun in the Idlib province took place on April 4. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, the Syrian aircraft struck terrorists’ workshops producing chemical agents. Washington accused Damascus of using chemical weapons, after which the US Navy delivered a missile strike overnight to April 7 on a Syrian military airfield in the province of Homs.
In early May, a source in military and diplomatic circles told TASS that a video group of stringers of Al Jazeera TV channel made a fabricated footage of an allegedly new use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army against civilians.