Pentagon Says Syria Not Used Chemical Weapons since US Strike in April
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Syrian government forces have not used chemical weapons since April, when the United States carried out a missile attack on a Syrian military airbase near the city of Homs, according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford.
"I like to think that [Syrian President Bashar] Assad has received the message loud and clear that the use of chemical weapons in unacceptable and that there will be consequences for the use of chemical weapons against his own people. Time will tell. He hasn’t used them since that day," Dunford said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Sputnik reported.
On April 7, the United States launched a total of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles on Ash Sha’irat airfield, with US President Donald Trump stating that the attack was a response to the reported chemical weapon use in Idlib, for which Washington put the blame on the government of Assad.
The official Damascus has refuted all accusations, reminding that all chemical weapons in Syria were destroyed under oversight of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) after the east Ghouta sarin gas incident in 2013.