Russia: Syria chemical attack 'staged' by foreign spy agencies

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday claimed that Moscow had "irrefutable" evidence that a deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria's Douma was staged with the help of a foreign secret service.

The alleged chemical attack took place in rebel-held Douma near Damascus on 7 April and killed up to 60 people, sparking international outrage and warnings of possible military action.

Lavrov told reporters that Russian experts have inspected the site of the alleged attack in Douma, just east of Damascus, and found no trace of chemical weapons.

"We have irrefutable evidence that this was another staged event, and that the secret services of a certain state that is now at the forefront of a Russophobic campaign was involved in this staged event," he said during a press conference.

He didn't elaborate or name the state.

The World Health Organisation said that 500 patients had attended health facilities with "signs and symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals" following the attack in Douma.

Blood and urine samples obtained from the attack site also tested positive for chlorine gas and nerve agents, US officials said.

A fact-finding team of inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was on its way to Syria on Thursday to begin an investigation into the suspected chemical weapons attack. 

Earlier this week, Russian officials had accused Syria's civil defence volunteers known as the "White Helmets" of staging the chemical attack in the rebel-held town of Douma.

Russia's ambassador to the European Union made the same accusation during an interview with Euronews, saying the White Helmets had specifically trained personnel to stage chemical attack videos.

The Syrian regime has repeatedly used chemical weapons during the war, with Human Rights Watch claiming Assad’s forces were responsible for the majority of 85 confirmed chemical weapons attacks.

In 2013, up to 1,400 people were killed in two alleged chemical weapons attacks on the opposition-controlled Damascus suburbs of Eastern and Western Ghouta.

Graphic videos emerged of dozens of bodies, including small children and babies, laid out in hospital clinics and morgues.

A team of UN chemical weapons inspectors confirmed that the nerve agent sarin was used in an attack, which was the "most significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them" in Halabja in 1988.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his supporters have consistently claimed that chemical and other attacks were in fact staged, and that an army of actors including children has been trained to fake injury on a massive scale.