Staffan de Mistura said on Wednesday sounded the alarm. “Civilians have been killed on a horrific scale – reports suggest more than 1 000 civilians in the first week of February alone,” he said during a UN Security Council meeting.
“I have been now four years as the special envoy. This is as violent and worrying and dangerous a moment as any that I have seen in my time of tenure so far.”
De Mistura blamed all the countries involved in the conflict in Syria, including the US attack on Syrian government forces near Deir Ezzor and Israeli air strikes in Syria.
Both these operations were defended by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN. “The United States will always reserve the right to act in self-defence,” she told the Security Council.
She blamed Russia for failing to stop Assad’s forces “from bombing and gassing civilians”.
During the seven years of the war on Syria several accusations were made that the government that it had used “chemical weapons” against the attacking extremists.
The Syrian government has denied the charges. “They were likely staged to incriminate the government and to thereby induce military attacks by foreign states,” a Syrian analyst said.
On February 13 the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria noted a warning of an upcoming false-flag “chemical attack” incident.
“On the evening of February 12, a resident from the Serakab settlement located in the Idlib province called the Russian Center for Reconciliation to notify (the center) about a chemical weapons attack that could be staged to provide footage for a foreign TV channel,” the statement noted.
