At least 83 people have died, 25 of them children, and at least 350 have been injured in a gas attack in Syria in the rebel-held area of the northern Idlib province, NBC News has learned.
The Syrian government has denied any involvement, though President Trump, who called the attack “reprehensible,” directly blames Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Obama administration’s “weakness and irresolution” regarding use of chemical weapons. Trump stressed that this attack “cannot be ignored by the civilized world.”
NBC News adds:
The Syrian government denied any involvement and said it was complying with the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans such instruments of war, according to SANA, the Syrian state-run news agency. Instead, the government blamed "armed terrorist organizations" for the attack.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has indicated that banned chemical weapons were indeed used in the attack. This is the third time these chemicals have been used in a month. Tillerson added:
"It is clear that this is how Bashar al-Assad operates: with brutal, unabashed barbarism. Those who defend and support him, including Russia and Iran, should have no illusions about Assad or his intentions. Anyone who uses chemical weapons to attack his own people shows a fundamental disregard for human decency and must be held accountable."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Twitter:
The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, will assemble the Security Council on Wednesday to discuss the attack.
NBC was told by a senior Syrian military officer that the country’s forces “target terrorist groups, not civilians.” However, as NBC notes, “The government has consistently denied using chemical weapons and chlorine gas, accusing the rebels of deploying it, instead. Assad agreed to destroy Syria's chemical weapons in the wake of an international outcry after a sarin nerve gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta killed hundreds of civilians in 2013.”
Oliver Money, the director of the non-profit aid group International Rescue Committee, said, “Civilians are facing on one hand the grotesque tactics of ISIS and on the other hand airstrikes from the Syrian regime and others.”
"They're trapped between these two forces just wanting a semblance of life,” he added. “And today's attack is an awful reminder of that."
