The local council in the town of Kafarzeita in northern rural Hama warned that the Assad regime and Russia were seeking to displace the local population by accusing the Civil Defense Corps of preparing to launch a chemical weapon attack on the town.
The council refuted claims being made by the Assad regime and Russia about the Civil Defense Corps, stressing that these claims were aimed at discrediting the volunteer group by accusing it of preparing to launch a ‘false flag’ operation.’ “The Assad regime was involved in many crimes after using chemical weapons against Syrian civilians in different parts of the country,” the council said in a statement on Sunday.
The statement added that the lies being circulated by Assad regime and Russia propaganda machines about the Civil Defense Corps, also known as the White Helmets, suggested that the Assad regime intended to bomb the town of Kafarzeita or one of the surrounding towns with toxic gases.
The council underscored that these allegations were aimed at discrediting the White Helmets which has already saved the lives of thousands of civilians. “They were also aimed at terrorizing the local population and displacing them from their homes.”
The White Helmets Director Raied Al-Saleh earlier said that Russia was seeking to smear the rescue group because it had irrefutable evidence about the Assad regime’s responsibility for the chemical attack in Douma in eastern Ghouta. “The Russian’s are desperately seeking to smear our group in order to discredit the evidence that our teams on the ground managed to collect about the chemical attack in Douma.”
The council called on the international, humanitarian organizations, the United Nations, and the UN Security Council to deter the Assad regime from using chemical and conventional weapons against the Syrian people and to punish it for the crimes and massacres it is committing in Syria.
Moreover, several civilian bodies in the town of Jisr al-Shughour in rural Idlib refuted the Russian allegations, stressing that these allegations were part of Moscow’s attempts to find a pretext for launching a military operation against the population of the region. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)