Syria accuses rebels of ‘ toxic gas’ attack

◗ Around 100 Syrians were hospitalised with breathing difficulties after the alleged chemical attack in the regime- held city of Aleppo on Saturday, state media and a monitor said

months on the outskirts of a major rebel bastion west of the city.

It was the latest accusation of a chemical attack in Syria’s grinding sevenyear civil war, which has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions.

State news agency SANA reported “107 cases of breathing difficulties”, after what health official Ziad Hajj Taha said was a “probable” chlorine attack on Aleppo city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain- based monitor, said a total of 94 people were hospitalised after “the smell of chlorine” was reported in the city, but most were discharged.

On Saturday, an AFP photographer saw dozens of civilians, including women and children, stream into an Aleppo hospital, some on stretchers or carried in by their relatives.

The injured seemed to be dizzy and breathing with difficulty.

Staff gave them oxygen masks, through which they breathed for 15minute sessions, either sitting or lying down.

The regime controls Aleppo city, but rebels and jihadists are present to the west in the country’s last major opposition bastion of Idlib.

On Sunday, Russian air raids hit a planned buffer zone on the edges of that stronghold, the Observatory and Moscow said.

They were the first airstrikes to hit the expected demilitarised area since a September deal between Moscow and rebel backer Ankara to protect Idlib from a massive regime assault.

On Sunday, Moscow said “terrorist groups” based in that buffer zone carried out the alleged toxic attack in Aleppo.

Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said they fired shells filled with chlorine on a residential area of Aleppo.