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Trump said in a tweet on April 8, 2008:

Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price...

Was there really a chemical attack in Syria (as claimed above) in April 2018 and was Bashar al-Assad responsible for it?

Oddthinking
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Pedro A
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    Nothing in this tweet states who is responsible, it's pretty cleverly constructed really, but the word 'allegedly' will appear often in other sources of that claim. – daniel Apr 14 '18 at 13:25
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    "Is Bashar responsible" is a subjective question (he is certainly not the executor), perhaps "Did Bashar order it" is a more objective version of it. But the main problem is that we don't allow questions on current news like this. Sources are tendentially unreliable (e.g. fog of war, propaganda, etc.) and facts emerge over time making answer obsolete in a matter of days (and no one cares about fixing them). Let's think about this once there is a historical, detached perspective on it. – Sklivvz Apr 14 '18 at 17:37
  • @Sklivvz I see, thanks for the comment. You are right. (: – Pedro A Apr 14 '18 at 17:42

1 Answers1

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It's referring to the Douma attack on April 7. Most likely chemical weapons were involved. According to the WHO:

According to reports from Health Cluster partners, during the shelling of Douma on Saturday, an estimated 500 patients presented to health facilities exhibiting signs and symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals. In particular, there were signs of severe irritation of mucous membranes, respiratory failure and disruption to central nervous systems of those exposed.

More than 70 people sheltering in basements have reportedly died, with 43 of those deaths related to symptoms consistent with exposure to highly toxic chemicals. Two health facilities were also reportedly affected by these attacks.

Furthermore, the BBC reported 20 minutes ago that

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors are expected to arrive in the area this weekend.

So we may have further details in the future. Obviously, the US, UK and France held Bashar responsible since they struck at his chemical weapons sites in response, last night, as detailed in the previous BBC link.

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Fizz
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    The "Health Cluster partner" is probably the white helmets, who seem to create anti Syrian propaganda. Either the WH staged the footage and faked the reports, or the Syrian government really did it and suppressed other real reports, fog of war, propaganda – daniel Apr 14 '18 at 22:13
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    @daniel: well the question was closed so I didn't feel like elaborating further, but the French have released their intelligence assessment of this and they exclude the footage from being fake because of the numb er of sources and their unlikelihood to have had the means to cooperate in staging an elaborate fake: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-france-intellige/french-declassified-intelligence-report-on-syria-gas-attacks-idUSKBN1HL0N1 – Fizz Apr 14 '18 at 22:23