Updated April 08, 2018 13:41:46

Photo: The rebel group say the Syrian Government is behind the chemical attack. (AP: Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets)

A Syrian rebel group has accused Government forces of launching a deadly chemical attack on civilians in a rebel-held town in Eastern Ghouta, and a medical relief organisation said 35 people had been killed in the area.

Syrian state media denied Government forces had launched any chemical attack and said rebels in the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma were in a state of collapse and spreading false news.

The US State Department said it was monitoring the situation and that Russia should be blamed if chemicals were used.

The Department said reports of mass casualties were "horrifying" and would demand an international response if confirmed.

"These reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

Citing a history of chemical weapons use by the Government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Ms Nauert said Mr al-Assad's government and its backer Russia needed to be held accountable and "any further attacks prevented immediately".

"Russia, with its unwavering support for the regime ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks," Ms Nauert said.

Reuters could not independently verify reports of a chemical attack.

The Syrian Government has recaptured nearly all of Eastern Ghouta from rebels in an offensive that began in February, leaving just Douma in the hands of an insurgent group, Jaish al-Islam.

Eastern Ghouta has been pounded daily by Syrian regime and Russian warplanes as Syrian Government forces try to get territory back from opposition fighters.

Russian-backed Syrian government forces resumed the assault on Friday afternoon with heavy air strikes after days of calm.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people had died in Douma as a result of suffocation caused by the smoke from conventional weapons being dropped by the Government. It said a total of 70 people suffered breathing difficulties.

Rami Abdulrahman, the Observatory director, said he could not confirm if chemical weapons had been used.

Medical relief organisation Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, killing six people, and a second attack with "mixed agents" including nerve agents had hit a nearby building.

Basel Termanini, the US-based vice president of SAMS, said the total death toll in the chemical attacks was 35.

"We are contacting the UN and the US Government and the European governments," he said by telephone.

The political official of Jaish al-Islam said the chemical attack had killed 100 people.

Thousands leave Douma for northern Syria

A US State Department official in a statement said the Syrian Government's history of using chemical weapons against its own people "was not in dispute".

"Russia ultimately bears responsibility for the brutal targeting of countless Syrians with chemical weapons," the US official said.

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Syrian state news agency SANA said Jaish al-Islam was making "chemical attack fabrications in an exposed and failed attempt to obstruct advances by the Syrian Arab army", citing an official source.

In the face of military defeat, rebel groups in other parts of eastern Ghouta opted to accept safe passage out of the area to the opposition-held territory at the Turkish border.

Several thousand people — fighters and civilians — left Douma for northern Syria in recent days as Jaish al-Islam held talks with Russia over Douma. Jaish al-Islam has insisted on remaining in the town.

The group rejects what it calls President Bashar al-Assad's policy of forcibly transferring his opponents to areas near the Turkish border.

Rebel-held areas of the Ghouta region were hit in a major chemical attack in 2013.

Last year, a joint inquiry by the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found the Syrian Government was responsible for an April 4, 2017 attack using the banned nerve agent sarin in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, killing dozens of people including children.

The inquiry had previously found that Syrian Government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015 and that Islamic State militants used mustard gas.

Reuters

Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, world-politics, syrian-arab-republic

First posted April 08, 2018 11:37:43