BICOM

Both the Syrian government and opposition forces looking to ouster President Assad accused each other of carrying out the first chemical weapons attack of the two-year conflict near the major city of Aleppo yesterday.

Widespread media reports appeared to concur that around 25 people died and about eighty were being treated in the al-Rajaa and Aleppo university hospitals, after an explosion was followed by a release of gas in a government-controlled sector of the city. A Reuters photographer said “People were suffocating in the streets and the air smelt strongly of chlorine.”

Reuters quotes a representative of the opposition Free Syrian Army saying, “the regime’s army hit the town with a long-range missile equipped with a chemical warhead.” However, Syria’s state run news agency SANA claimed that the incident was a rebel chemical attack. Syria’s Information Minister, Omran al-Zoabi added, “If we had chemical weapons we would never use them.” Meanwhile, the Telegraph quotes experts in chemical warfare suggesting that the incident could have been the stored chemicals being struck by a missile.

The incident drew an international response, with Western leaders having repeatedly warned of repercussions should Syria deploy its significant chemical stockpiles. The UK’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Mark Lyall Grant said that although the reports “haven’t yet been fully verified,” if they were proved accurate, “it would require a serious response from the international community.” Meanwhile, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “We have no evidence to substantiate the charge that the opposition has used chemical weapons,” although Russia’s Foreign Ministry, considered a close Assad ally, said it believed there had been “a case of the use of chemical weapons by the armed opposition.”