NEW YORK, September 13. /TASS/. US journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh published an intelligence assessment that had purportedly been prepared by the US Defense Intelligence Agency and indicated that the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra (banned in Russia) had the capabilities to make chemical weapons in 2013.

"The al-Nusrah Front associated sarin production cell is the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) pre 9/11 effort," he quoted the assessment, entitled the Talking Points, as saying in an article that he posted on Substack. "Arrests in Iraq and Turkey have disrupted the cell’s operations; however we assess the intent to produce advanced chemical weapon (CW) remains."

The intelligence report indicated there were attempts to make chemical weapons, but it didn’t mention whether the terrorists achieved their goal.

Hersh suggests that the US is trying to hide the real information about the terrorists' actions. At the same time, he quoted his correspondence with the White House press service, which denies the existence of such a report.

Hersh quoted a White House press aide as saying that the assessment "is not something that his [Shedd’s] office received. Since neither the WH [White House] nor the DNI [director of national intelligence Clapper] have seen the alleged memo…it’s unclear whether it’s a fake or a draft that was never sent forward because it contained information that was incorrect."

The US accused Syrian officials of organizing the 2013 chemical attack against the opposition-held Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. Hersh insists that Washington is trying to hush up the fact that terrorists could have had similar capabilities.