Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on Saturday for an impartial probe of this week’s suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria and warned that US missile strikes in response risked escalating extremism in the region.
“We are asking for an impartial international fact-finding body to be set up…to find out where these chemical weapons came from,” Rouhani said during a speech on Saturday.
Tehran is Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad’s main regional ally and has provided military and economic support for his fight against pro-democracy opposition groups as well as groups such as Daesh and other Al-Qaeda-linked groups.
Extremists were released by the Assad regime in order to bolster the ranks of Daesh militants early on in the Syrian revolution that began in 2011, including from the infamous Sednaya prison.
While the Syrian opposition applauded the US cruise missile attack on the Shayrat airbase near the west-central city of Homs on Friday, it said it should not be a one-off and was not enough on its own to stop government warplanes from hitting opposition-held areas.
The Shayrat airbase was used by the Assad regime to launch a sarin gas attack on the village of Khan Sheikhoun in the opposition-held Idlib governorate. There were no armed fighters in the area at the time, resulting in an attack that has been criticised for specifically targeting civilians, killing close to 100.
However, in a tweet about the missile strikes, Rouhani said: “I call on the world to reject such policies, which bring only destruction and danger to the region and the globe.”
“US aggression against Shayrat [air base] strengthens regional extremism and terror, and global lawlessness and instability, and must be condemned,” Rouhani said.
US aggression against Shayrat strengthens regional extremism and terror, and global lawlessness and instability, and must be condemned. 2/3
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) April 7, 2017
Iran says it has military advisers and volunteers in Syria but denies having a conventional force on the ground.
However, many Iranian military officers have been killed throughout the Syrian war, as well as thousands of Shia jihadists recruited by Tehran from inside Iran itself, as well as Pakistan, Afghanistan and neighbouring Iraq.
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