Washington suggests Russia, Syria may tamper with gas attack traces

DAMASCUS/THE HAGUE — The United States accused Russia on Monday of blocking international inspectors from reaching the site of a suspected poison gas attack in Syria and said Russians or Syrians may have tampered with evidence on the ground.

Moscow denied the charge and blamed delays on retaliatory US-led missile strikes on Syria on Saturday.

British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron faced criticism from political opponents over their decisions to take part in the air strikes.

Syria and Russia deny unleashing poison gas on April 7 during their offensive on Douma, which ended with the recapture of the town that had been the last rebel stronghold near the capital, Damascus.

Relief organizations say dozens of men, women and children were killed. Footage of young victims foaming at the mouth and weeping in agony has thrust Syria’s civil war — in which half a million people have been killed in the past seven years — to the forefront of world concern again.

Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) travelled to Syria last week to inspect the site, but have yet to gain access to Douma, which is now under government control after the rebels withdrew.

“It is our understanding the Russians may have visited the attack site,” US Ambassador Kenneth Ward said at an OPCW meeting in The Hague on Monday.

“It is our concern that they may have tampered with it with the intent of thwarting the efforts of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission to conduct an effective investigation.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied Moscow had interfered with any evidence. “I can guarantee that Russia has not tampered with the site,” he told the BBC.

JITTERS

Increasing regional jitters, Syrian anti-aircraft defences shot down missiles fired at the air base of Shayrat in Homs province late on Monday and at another base northeast of the capital, Damascus, Syrian state television and pro-Iranian Hezbollah media said.

The Pentagon said there was no US military activity in that area “at this time.”

The United Nations Security Council was due to be briefed on Tuesday, at the request of Russia, on the situation in Syria’s northern city of Raqqa, where Islamic State was defeated last year by US-backed forces, and the Rubkan camp for displaced Syrians near the country’s border with Jordan and Iraq.

Two days after the missile strikes that he hailed as a wellexecuted military operation, President Donald Trump still wants to bring the small number of US troops in northern Syria home, the White House said.

But spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said he had not set a timeline for a pullout. Mr. Trump was also willing to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, she added, while indicating that no such encounter was imminent.

Britain’s delegation to the OPCW accused Russia and the Assad government of stopping inspectors from reaching Douma. “Unfettered access is essential,” it said in a statement. “Russia and Syria must cooperate.”

The team aims to collect samples, interview witnesses and document evidence to determine whether banned toxic munitions were used, although it is not permitted to assign blame for the attack.

British Ambassador Peter Wilson said in The Hague that the United Nations had cleared the inspectors to go but they had been unable to reach Douma because Syria and Russia had been unable to guarantee their safety.

Moscow blamed the delay on the air strikes, in which the United States, France and Britain targeted what the Pentagon said were three chemical weapons facilities.

“We called for an objective investigation. This was at the very beginning after this information (of the attack) appeared. Therefore allegations of this towards Russia are groundless,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

A Russian defense ministry official said later the OPCW experts would travel to Douma on Wednesday. —