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Al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has moved toxic gases from Idlib city to an abandoned town in the eastern Idlib countryside, Sputnik reported on May 7.
Sources familiar with the matter told Sputnik that the toxic gases will be kept in a depot in the town of Kafarya, whose residents were displaced in 2018, for a while. Later, the toxics will be moved to a new depot on the Syrian border with Turkey.
According to the sources, the toxics, which are stored in cylinders, were moved in a van equipped with a refrigerator on the morning of May 7.
The cylinders were shipped from a headquarters of HTS in Idlib city to a position of the group in the western outskirts of the city, where they were briefly stored before being moved to Kafarya in eastern Idlib.
“HTS uses the abandoned town as a station only, as the toxic shipment will soon be transported to a camp on the Syrian-Turkish border,” one of the sources, a member of the White Helmets organization, told Sputnik.
The source revealed that the toxic gases arrived at HTS headquarters in Idlib city exactly five days ago. Three militants, two Chechens and one French, were guarding the shipment.
Sputnik’s report is not surprising. In the last three years, sources in Greater Idlib revealed details about HTS’ chemical program to outlets in Russia, Syria and Lebanon.
The Ministry of Defense of Russia warned on many occasions in the past that HTS and its allies are planning to use toxics to stage false-flag attack with chemical weapons. The aim will be to provoke a military response by the US and its Western allies against the Syrian military.
