MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. The Syrian army is pushing ahead with a successful offensive on the positions of terrorists and it has no need for using any such weapons, Head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Department Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoi said on Tuesday

The Russian general added that the Syrian forces had no chemical weapons at all.

"In a situation like this, the Bashar Assad government has no need for using chemical weapons. Moreover, the Syrian army has none," he said.

About 3,500 square meters of Syrian land retaken

 Syrian government troops since the beginning of this year have retaken from terrorists 226 communities and about 3,500 square kilometers of land, the chief of the main operations directorate of Russia’s General Staff, Colonel-General Sergey Rudskoi, told a news briefing on Tuesday.

In the northeast of Aleppo province government troops over the past two weeks eliminated a surrounded group of terrorists near Dayr Hafir and are now pushing ahead with the offensive along the Western bank of the Euphrates.

"By now the Syrian army has moved forward by ten kilometers to approach the Jahra airdrome," Rudskoi said.

"Russian sappers are clearing the ancient city of Palmyra of mines and explosive objects. As of today, 21 socially important facilities have been demined, including ten schools, nine mosques and two outpatient clinics," Rudskoi said.

He said 1,894 buildings and apartment blocks have been checked on a territory of 1,135 hectares, as well as 115 kilometers of roads. More than 5,000 bombs and self-made explosive devices have been defused.

On order of US President Donald Trump, the US military fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from its warships in the Mediterranean on an air base in the Syrian province of Homs on Thursday night. The missile strike was delivered in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Syrian province of Idlib on April 4. The US leadership believes that the alleged chemical attack was launched from that airfield.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry’s data, the Syrian aircraft hit workshops on April 4 where terrorists were producing munitions with chemical agents supplied to Iraq and used in Aleppo.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow considered the US missile strikes on the air base in Homs as an aggression against a sovereign state.