Russia: Syrian troops found German chlorine in Ghouta

The spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry says Syrian troops found chlorine of German origin in the Eastern Ghouta region, which includes a town where a suspected chemical weapons attack prompted retaliatory missile strikes by the West on Syrian government targets.

Syria and its Russian backers deny that government forces were responsible for the reported attack in the town of Douma. The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed the incident was staged by Britain and a Russian general in Syria says no evidence of chemical weapons has been found in Douma. Rebels who once held the town abandoned it this month.

However, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says Thursday that “Syrian government troops, in freeing the territory of Eastern Ghouta, found containers with chlorine, the most terrible kind of chemical weapon, from Germany.” The statement appeard to be aimed at bolstering contentions that Syrian rebels have used chemical weapons.

— AP