There is no evidence to back claims by Washington on Tuesday that that there were "signs" Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime perpetrated chemical attacks this week, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday.
"We have no proof at all of the attack," Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the AFP news agency.
"We have not documented any chemical attack in the mountains of Latakia," he said.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance, led by Syria's former al-Qaida affiliate, accused government forces on Sunday of launching a chlorine gas attack on its fighters in the north of Latakia province.
The Syrian army dismissed the reports as a fabrication, a military source told the pro-government Al-Watan newspaper.
But the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it was assessing indications that Assad's government had used chemical weapons.
"We are still gathering information on this incident, but we repeat our warning that if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons, the United States and our allies will respond quickly and appropriately," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.
The head of Observatory said that only jihadists were present at the site of Sunday's alleged attack, making it nearly impossible to objectively confirm the incident.
"There were no civilians in the area," Abdel Rahman said.
White Helmets rescue volunteers, who have reported past chemical attacks in rebel-held areas of Syria, told AFP Wednesday that they had no information on the purported gas attack.
Meanwhile, the French foreign ministry said Wednesday that the allegations of a chemical attack by Syrian government forces must be investigated.
"We have noted with a degree of alarm these allegations, which need to be looked into," the foreign ministry said in an online press briefing.
"We have full confidence in the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," it added.
Part of this article was originally published by i24NEWS. Read more at https://www.i24news.tv/en.
