Syria regime denies HRW report about chemical weapons in Aleppo

Damascus “utterly rejects” a recent Human Rights Watch report that said its military and allied forces had used chemical weapons during their capture of Aleppo last year, Syrian state media reported today.

“An official source at the Foreign Ministry confirmed that the government… utterly rejects the false allegations,” Syria’s official SANA news agency reported.

Read: Syrian regime carried out ‘coordinated chemical attacks on Aleppo’  

Human Rights Watch, an international human rights organisation which monitors abuses around the world, said in the report published on Monday that Syrian government forces had dropped chlorine bombs “in residential areas in Aleppo on at least eight occasions” late last year.

Syria and its ally Russia, which helped the government’s troops in the assault on Aleppo, have repeatedly denied using chemical weapons in the conflict and have instead accused rebels of deploying poison gas.

Read: Syrian regime denies execution of 13,000 prisoners

However, numerous reports from Aleppo and other locations around Syria show that the regime’s infamous barrel bombs were laced with chlorine gas and other chemical compounds to create weapons devastating to human life.

These weapons and other munitions were repeatedly used by the regime, Russia and Iran-backed Shia jihadists as they attempted to force the opposition to submit. Russia was also accused of directly bombing several hospitals in opposition-held districts of eastern Aleppo, with numerous international aid and humanitarian agencies criticising the Kremlin for these acts.

Assad: One drop of Russian blood more valuable than anything else

Syria’s civil war pits the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad, backed by Russia, Iran and Shia jihadists against opposition groups including some supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as other rebel factions.

The army’s capture of Aleppo in late December after months of siege and an intense bombardment gave Al-Assad his biggest victory in the war so far, but involved an air and artillery bombardment that caused destruction across whole districts.