The US is preparing Syrian jihadists for possible chemical weapons attacks in order to derail Damascus’ diplomatic reengagement with other Arab nations, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has claimed.
The goal of the purported operation and subsequent media campaign would be to “show the Arab world that their choice to restore dialogue with [Syrian President] Bashar Assad was a ‘strategic mistake’,” a statement released by the Russian agency on Monday said.
The SVR claimed that it had obtained at least two pieces of evidence to support its assessment. One was a report that two anti-government armed groups in the province of Idlib had practiced the deployment of chemical weapons in May. The region is not controlled by the Syrian government.
The exercise involved local branches of the jihadist groups Hurras al-Din and Turkistan Islamic Party, and resulted in the poisoning of some 100 civilians, the SVR claimed. The Russian agency called both jihadist groups “CIA-controlled.”