DAMASCUS, April 14. /TASS/. The US-led coalition dealt a strike on Syria with the aim to upset the investigation of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in Eastern Ghouta, the coordinator of the State Duma’s group for relations with the Syrian parliament, Dmitry Sablin, told the media on Saturday. Sablin is currently in Damascus with a Russian delegation.

"That the strike against Syria was delivered on the day when the OPCW mission was to get down to work indicates that nobody cares about the truth. Just as it was the case with alleged Iraqi WMD, it was just a pretext," Sablin said. He is certain that the attack was launched "especially for upsetting an impartial investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta."

"We’ve been able to see for ourselves that Homs province, devastated by the Islamic State (outlawed in Russia) and other terrorists, has begun to restore itself. In the meantime, so-called Western humanists bring more death and destruction," he said.

Sablin advised "the Western adventurists who have unleashed aggression in the Middle East again to turn an attentive ear to the warning from the chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov such aggression would not remain unretaliated."

The delegation Sablin leads arrived in Damascus on Friday. Before, it visited Homs and Palmyra.