Syria’s representative to the United Nations said that the U.S. has provided armed groups in western Syria with chemical weapons, training the groups to use the weapons to launch a possible false flag attack during a U.N. Security Council session on Wednesday, August 9. 

“U.S. occupation forces provided terrorists in Al-Tanf with chemical weapons and trained them to use them for an alleged incident of chemical weapons use so that they can accuse Syria of such an act later,” Deputy Representative of Syria to the U.N. Dr. Al-Hakam Dandi said during the session. 

“The persistence of the Council to convene monthly meetings on the so-called ‘Syrian chemical file’ in spite that no developments had happened aims at creating opportunities for well-known states to repeat their accusations,” he added. “Syria condemns any use of chemical weapons anywhere, anytime, and by any party.”

The Al-Tanf base was established by U.S. forces occupying Syria in 2016. The base lies at an intersection of Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan, housing more than 100 U.S. troops. 

According to David Schenker with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), Washington has used the Al-Tanf base to train Syrian armed opposition groups, which “serves as leverage in the long-running negotiations over the country’s future.”

Several Western nations wanting to overthrow the government in Syria have made repeated accusations that the Syrian government has conducted chemical attacks in the past. The allegations started in 2012 when U.S. President Obama declared that any use of chemical weapons by Syria would serve as crossing a “red line,” inducing the U.S. military to get involved with the conflict. 

This produced an incentive for intelligence agencies and extremist groups supporting them to launch false flag chemical attacks while blaming Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. 

The most prominent of these chemical attacks was in Ghouta, a Damascus Suburb, in August 2013. The attack was later proven to be carried out by Jaish al-Islam, a Saudi-backed extremist group. 

Western nations then attempted to politicize the U.N.’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), using it to publish reports that blamed the Syrian government for the chemical weapon attacks. The politicization was clearly demonstrated through the OPCW’s investigation in 2018 of another chemical attack in Douma. 

OPCW directors changed the investigation findings in the organization’s report about the chemical attack in Douma. They then tried to silence investigators speaking out about the investigation’s manipulation. U.N. representative Dandi urged that all parties should be held accountable to change the “OPCW track and get it away from misinformation, politicization, and polarization.” 

Damascus’ warning comes as the U.S. significantly reinforces its illegal occupation of northeast Syrian oilfields and with ISIS making a resurgence in the region.