Syrian Rebels Claim Evidence of Chlorine Bomb Use

Govt Reiterates Claim Jabhat al-Nusra Launched Strike

Syria’s government and rebels continue to trade allegations over a chlorine gas poisoning incident in Kfar Zeita village, which sickened scores and by some accounts may have killed a handful of people.

A heretofore unmentioned rebel group calling itself “Syrian Revolution in Kfar Zeita” has issued video footage and photographs of a canister with the symbol for chlorine gas written on the side of it.

The rebels are claiming the canister was part of a barrel bomb attack dropped out of a helicopter, though of course their footage just showed it in the street and doesn’t show how it got there.

The Syrian government was the first to claim it was a chlorine gas attack, and blamed it on al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra.

Exactly how the chlorine was dispersed is unclear, as was who did it, though the fact that it appears to have hit civilians and not combatants has raised speculation it was an accidental leak that happened in the course of fighting in the village.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.