Terrorists were planning to stage a chemical weapons provocation in the eastern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone, the Russian Centre for the Reconciliation of Enemies in Syria (RRСS) said.
It is noted that irrefutable evidence of this was obtained the day before during the attack of Syrian troops on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militants.
“With a view to disrupting the advance of Syrian Government forces in the western quarters of Serakib and subsequently charging them with the use of chemical weapons, on 2 March, in the dark, a group of up to 15 terrorists attempted to detonate high-explosive munitions along with containers filled with toxic chemicals”.
According to the RRСS, the militants broke the airtightness of one of the tanks and leaked chemicals.
“The terrorists received severe chemical poisoning without being able to detonate the ammunition or make a provocation”, – the centre added.
They also stressed that the military has all the data confirming the incident and will disclose it soon.
The situation in Idlib escalated after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists launched a large-scale attack on Syrian government positions on 27 February. The Syrian army returned fire.