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Russian Jets Hit Targets at Militants' Staging Ground for Aleppo Chemical Attack

Syrian media reported on Saturday that militants based north of Aleppo bombarded the city with chlorine-filled shells, causing over a hundred people to be delivered to hospitals with symptoms typical for poisoning such as suffocation.
Sputnik

Russia's Defence Ministry confirmed that Russian jets hit the targets of terorrists who had reportedly shelled Aleppo with deadly chlorine gas on Saturday.

According to the ministry, intelligence services identified in the Idlib de-escalation zone the fire weapons that were used in the Aleppo gas attack. They also found that the terrorists were preparing for another poisonous shelling. All the targets were destroyed; Turkey was warned about the strikes in advance via a hotline.

The statement further noted that terrorists from the al-Nusra* group used hand-made 120-mm mines with poisonous substances to shell Aleppo.

"The primary analysis of fragments of the shells indicates that the terrorists used hand-made 120-mm mines, which were filled with poisonous substances in an improvised manner," the official told reporters.

READ MORE: Russian MoD to Discuss Aleppo Chlorine Shelling With Ankara

Ankara Transfers Militants to Turkey From Syria's Idlib - Reports
Earlier in the day, Damascus accused unnamed western countries of supplying weapons to armed terror groups so that they could stage false flag chemical attacks and then blame them on the government. Syria also urged the UN to take "punitive measures" against the countries that were supporting the Aleppo attackers.

Russia's Foreign Ministry, in turn, described the Aleppo shelling as an "attempt to damage the Syrian normalisation process", adding that it should be "unconditionally condemned" by the entire international community.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA reported on Saturday that neighorhoods of Aleppo had been bombarded with chlorine-loaded shells, poisoning at least 107 people.

*al-Nusra [The Nusra Front, Tahir al-Sham] — a terrorist group banned in Russia

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