DISINFO: White Helmets used chemical weapons in Syria in order to accuse Assad government
SUMMARY
White Helmets used chemical weapons in Syria in order to put the blame on the Assad government.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin narratives portraying the White Helmets as a Western-backed terrorist proxy and, implicitly, denying the responsibility of the Assad regime for chemical attacks perpetrated during the Syrian civil war.
The UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism found Syria’s Government responsible for the April 2017 attack in Khan Shaykhun. On April 2018, Russia vetoed a US-drafted UN Security Council resolution that would have created a new inquiry to ascertain responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria. In June 2018, the OPCW members granted it the power to assign responsibility for chemical attacks.
In September 2017, the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic summarized 33 separate incidents where it had found use of chemical weapons. Since then there have been several additional suspected chemical attacks. Between March 2013 and March 2017, the Commission documented 25 incidents of chemical weapons use in the Syrian Arab Republic, of which 20 were perpetrated by government forces and used primarily against civilians.
See here more information about the disinformation campaign against the White Helmets.
Read similar cases claiming that the White Helmets were involved in the production of videos of staged “chemical attacks” and that the White Helmets have close links to Al-Qaeda and falsify chemical attacks evidence.