The Pentagon is looking into whether Russia may have played a part in the planning or execution of a April 4 chemical weapons attack, two senior military officials said on Friday.
During the chemical attack, a single Syrian Air Force Su-22 warplane was monitored dropping a poison gas bomb that landed in a roadway in the Syrian town of Kham Shaykhun, as well as a follow-up attack on a nearby hospital a couple of hours later that may have been intended to cover up evidence of the chemical attack.
The two officials who briefed reporters at the Pentagon Friday said the U.S. has no evidence of Russian complicity, but that any leads will be followed up.
“To be clear, we have no knowledge of Russian involvement in this attack, but we will investigate any information that might lead us in that direction,” one official said. “We’re not done. We will continue to look more aggressively.”
While the U.S. has high confidence that a Syrian jet conducted the chemical attack, the official said, it is unsure as to which nation later bombed the hospital.
“Any implication or lead that would indicate Russian involvement, we’ll investigate that lead,” the official said.
The official added that, “at a minimum the Russians failed to rein in the Syrian regime activity. We know the Russians have chemical expertise in country. We cannot talk about openly of any complicity between the Russians and the Syria regime in this case, but we are carefully assessing any information that would implicate [sic] the Russians knew or assisted with this Syrian capability.”
