Mike Pompeo accuses Syrian government of chemical attack in Latakia
Syrian forces allegedly used chlorine as a chemical weapon in an attack on Syria's Latakia province, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday.
Pompeo told reporters at UN headquarters in New York that the US had concluded chemical weapons were used by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government forces in an attack on 19 May.
"This attack was a part of the Assad regime's ongoing campaign in Idlib, which has killed more than 1,000 Syrians and displayed hundreds of thousands more," Pompeo said.
Pompeo also announced the US will impose sanctions on Russian entities accused of shipping jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria.
In May, Washington said it had received reports of chemical exposures after an attack in northwest Syria, but drew no conclusions at that time as to whether the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, according to Reuters.
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Latakia is a stronghold of Assad and is home to the Hmeimim airbase, where Russian troops and warplanes have been based since 2015.
Still, forces opposed to Assad hold a northeastern sliver of territory bordering the neighbouring province of Idlib which the government has repeatedly attacked.
The chemical attack, according to Pompeo, took place during the Syrian government's military campaign against the last major rebel-held bastion of Idlib, which began in April.
In September 2018, a US official said there was evidence that the Syrian government was planning to use chemical weapons in Idlib.
The US warned the Syrian government against chemical attacks before, and US President Donald Trump has ordered the bombing of Syria twice - once in April 2017 and another time in April 2018 - over the government's alleged use of chemical weapons.
"The United States will will not allow these attacks to go unchallenged nor will we tolerate those who choose to conceal these atrocities," the secretary of state said, while declining to say what the US response might be.
Syria's civil war began in 2011 with demonstrations against Assad's rule, which turned into an armed conflict that has gutted the country's infrastructure, schools and hospitals.
More than half a million people have died since the war began, and 11 million have been forced to flee their homes.
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