Back on March 9, the HTS militants were intending to stage a chemical attack on the village of Kabana in Idlib.
The Russian Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Parties in Syria announced on February 20 that the HTS terrorists had been planning a provocation with the use of toxic agents northeast of the de-escalation zone in Syria’s Idlib Province.
The center said at the time that the al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists had already delivered truck containers with toxic agents, presumably chlorine, to the town of Turmanin.
“According to our information, militants plan to simulate a chemical attack entailing casualties among local residents in order to accuse the Syrian government forces of the use of chemical weapons against civilians,” it stated back then.
Also on April 4, 2017, a suspected sarin gas attack hit the town of Khan Shaykhun in Syria’s Idlib Province, killing more than 80 people.
The Western countries rushed to blame the incident on the Syrian governemnt, with the US launching a missile attack against Shayrat Airbase in Syria’s Homs Province on April 7, 2017.
Washington claimed that the air field had been the origin of the chemical attack. Damascus, however, said the Khan Shaykhun incident was a fabrication to justify the subsequent US missile strike.
Russia has repeatedly criticized the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for ignoring the information about toxic provocations in Syria, saying the body is biased against the Damascus government.
Recently, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said the OPCW is being used as a political tool by the Western countries to put pressure on the states they deem as "undesirable".