Grainy footage ‘that shows Assad is still gassing his people’

SHOCKING new evidence emerged last night that appears to show the use of sarin and chlorine gas by the Syrian state against its own people as it mounts a desperate push for one of the final rebel enclaves.

Gruesome video posted on social media shows bodies, including children, apparently shrouded by poisonous fumes on the streets of Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus.

President Bashar al-Assad’s troops are reported to have used sarin grenades and chlorine missiles against 400,000 people trapped there. The chlorine attack was widely reported on Twitter and confirmed by the Syrian Civil Defence, known as the White Helmets.

Chemical weapons expert and humanitarian campaigner Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said the mobile phone video footage showed a ‘characteristic haze’ billowing over a street in a yellowgreen cloud. Amid the scenes of panic, one man can be heard shouting ‘Alkulur’ – Arabic for chlorine.

Col de Bretton-Gordon said he had ‘reliable evidence’ that sarin was being used in grenades and mortars to ‘winkle out’ people from tunnels. He added: ‘At the same time the chlorine is being delivered by missiles and seeps down into basement areas where people are sheltering, forcing them above ground, where they are being relentlessly bombarded day and night.’

Col de Bretton-Gordon, co-director of Doctors Under Fire, said he had been told that a local hospital was treating seven people for the effects of chlorine inhalation, but there had been no deaths.

The last confirmed use of sarin was in April 2017, prompting President Trump to launch 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base.