MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin has accused the United States of preparing new false flag attacks involving chemical weapons to discredit Syria's leadership against the background of normalization in Syria’s relations with the greater Arab world.

"Biden's team is doing everything to derail the Arab-Syrian normalization, to discredit the Syrian leadership. Toward this end, false flag attacks are being prepared, including with the use of chemical warfare agents," the SVR press office quoted a statement by Naryshkin on Monday. "According to data available to the SVR, practice drills for testing the methods for using [these agents] were conducted this past May in Syria’s Idlib Province by fighters attached to Hurras al-Din, the local CIA-controlled branch of Al-Qaeda [terrorist organization outlawed in Russia - TASS], as well as extremists from the Turkestan Islamic Party. About 100 civilians were poisoned [as a result of the drills]," Naryshkin said.

In addition, "the Americans have not forgotten their wards in ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, terrorist organization outlawed in Russia - TASS] in the south of Syria: they have received missiles with warheads filled with chemical agents," he went on to say. According to the SVR, they were deployed near the villages of Al-Khawiya and Al-Zawriyah not far from the Al-Tanf US military base. According to the SVR, this site has become a real "nest of bandits." A US-British "joint intelligence committee" was recently established there, which in reality serves as headquarters for controlling the activities of fighters in southern Syria and in the Damascus region, the statement said.

According to Russian intelligence, the Anglo-Americans are preparing to prop up their schemes by rolling out a high-octane media campaign to show the countries of the Arab world that their choice in favor of a renewed dialogue with Syrian President Bashar Assad was a "strategic mistake," and that those dissenting from this line will find themselves under the direct threat of sanctions.

Naryshkin reiterated that Syria's relations with other Arab countries are gaining momentum. Following the historic Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia, Damascus is once again receiving guests from virtually all countries in the Arab world, as was the case before 2011. Dialogue is being established on a range of issues, from the fight against terrorism to the reconstruction of Syria's economy, which will improve the situation in the Middle East and enable the repatriation of millions of Syrian refugees.

This, however, clearly does not suit the US administration, the statement said. "It is clear that, in reality, a criminal mistake is being made by the West itself. What it will surely succeed in doing is cementing its reputation in the Middle East as an instigator of instability. However, virtually no one in the region harbors any doubts about that anymore," Naryshkin stressed.