Syria chemical 'attack': Russia rebel weapons claim rejected
Russian claims that a release of chemicals that killed and injured dozens of civilians in northern Syria came from rebel weapons on the ground have been rejected.
Britain's foreign secretary, a rebel commander and a weapons expert all said the evidence pointed to an attack by Syrian government forces.
Damascus denies its forces launched a chemical weapons attack.
The issue is overshadowing a conference on Syria in Brussels.
Seventy donor nations are discussing aid efforts in the war-ravaged country.
Syria chemical 'attack': What now?
The United Nations Security Council is due to hold emergency talks later following the release of gas in Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province which - according to UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - killed 72 people, including 20 children.
What happened?
Footage from Khan Sheikhoun following the incident on Tuesday showed civilians, many of them children, choking and foaming at the mouth.
Witnesses said clinics treating the injured were then targeted by air strikes.
- Aftermath of attack in pictures (Warning: graphic images)
- The spectre of nerve agents in Syria - again
- Media outrage at Syria chemical attack
Some of the victims were treated across the border in Turkey. One woman in hospital said: "We were affected by the gas. We couldn't stand up. I felt dizzy and sick. I suffer from shortness of breath. I couldn't breathe."
The World Health Organization said some of the victims had symptoms consistent with exposure to nerve agents.
The UN health agency also highlighted the "apparent lack of external injuries reported in cases showing a rapid onset of similar symptoms, including acute respiratory distress as the main cause of death".
What do the Russians say?
Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, acknowledged that Syrian planes had attacked Khan Sheikhoun.
But it said the aircraft had struck a depot producing mines filled with a poisonous substance, for use by militants in Iraq.
"Yesterday [Tuesday], from 11:30am to 12:30pm local time, Syrian aviation made a strike on a large terrorist ammunition depot and a concentration of military hardware in the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun town," Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konoshenkov said.
"On the territory of the depot there were workshops which produced chemical warfare munitions."
Critics of the Russian statement say reports of the release of gas came hours before the times stated by Mr Konoshenkov.
Local journalists say there are no military positions in the town itself, but an array of broadly aligned rebel groups controlling the area surrounding it.
The response
UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson responded to the Russian statement by saying: "All the evidence I have seen suggests this was the Assad regime... using illegal weapons on their own people."
A Syrian rebel commander described the Russian statement as a "lie".
Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, told Reuters news agency: "Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas.
"Likewise, all the civilians in the area know that there are no military positions there... The various factions of the opposition are not capable of producing these substances."
US blames Assad over 'chemical attack'
A chemical weapons expert, Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, told the BBC that the Russian version of events was "pretty fanciful".
The idea that a nerve gas like Sarin could spread after a weapons manufacturing process had been bombed was "unsustainable", he added.
In a statement on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump condemned what he called "these heinous actions" by the government of President Assad.
He also blamed his predecessor, Barack Obama, for what he termed his "weakness" on Syria. Critics pointed to tweets by Mr Trump dating back to 2013 that urged the US government to ignore Syria and focus on domestic problems.
Syria and chemical weapons
The Syrian government was accused by Western powers of firing rockets filled with Sarin at several rebel-held suburbs of the capital Damascus in August 2013, killing hundreds of people.
President Assad denied the charge, blaming rebel fighters, but he did subsequently agree to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal.
Despite that, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has continued to document the use of toxic chemicals in attacks in Syria.
Cost of fighting
Syria's civil war has raged for more than six years, with no political solution in sight.
Nearly five million Syrians have fled the country and more than six million are internally displaced, the UN says.
More than 250,000 people have been killed.
