Jim Mattis, the US defense secretary, said Syria would be “very unwise to use gas,” in a warning over alleged chemical weapons attacks in battle to seize control of Eastern Ghouta.
Rebels vowed not to surrender to President Bashar al-Assad’s forced under an intensifying government assault on the Damascus that has split the suburb into three parts.
Mr Mattis told reporters travelling with him to Oman that he was “aware of the reports of chlorine gas use” but refused to say whether the US was considering retaliation, as it did last year after Syrian troops used Sarin gas.
At least 27 people, mainly children, were injured on Wednesday in an attack that medics say left survivors struggling to breathe and smelling of chlorine. A second reported attack took place Sunday morning in opposition-held neighborhood of Arbin.
The Syrian government denies using incendiary or chemical weapons, saying rebels were planning to stage a fake chemical attack to discredit the army.
AMMAR SULEIMAN/ AFP
Mr Mattis’s comments came as the death toll in Eastern Ghouta surpassed 1,100 people since the government began its three-week offensive to capture the last rebel stronghold on the edge of the capital. The offensive has been typified by ferocious air raids and widespread use of indiscriminate weapons such as barrel bombs.
Doctors in the devastated area, which has been under full or partial siege for five years, have described scenes of chaos and horror unfolding under near-constant assault by airstrikes and rockets in recent weeks.
Dr Hamza Hassan, a physician operating inside Eastern Ghouta, described the death of a small boy early on Sunday. Seven-year-old Muhamad Saif Hijazi had been sheltering in a basement when the building was hit and he was blown apart.
Death toll rises after Syria airstrikes, in pictures
Syrian government forces, backed by Russian airpower, appear to be pursuing the same divide and conquer strategy in Eastern Ghouta that they used to devastating effect in Aleppo.
Late on Saturday, Syrian state TV broadcasted from Mesraba after the army captured it, driving a wedge deep inside the insurgent territory that left the major neighbourhoods of Douma and Harasta all but cut off.
But in a statement issued late on Saturday, Free Syrian Army-linked rebel groups Failaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Islam have vowed to fight on, refusing any surrender and negotiated withdrawal. The groups have lost more than half the enclave’s area in two weeks of ground fighting.
With Eastern Ghouta now split into three parts, government forces are applying maximum pressure on each, crushing the insurgency street by street.
While the government and Russia say they have set up safe routes into government-held territory to help citizens escape the fighting, no civilians are known to have crossed through them yet.
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