Syria chemical weapons program

BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the Syria conflict (all times local):

2:50 p.m.

Russia's Foreign Ministry says the "smart" missiles that U.S. President Donald Trump has promised to send to Syria will destroy evidence of a suspected chemical weapons attack.

Samples taken from a suspected poison gas site in Syria's northern Idlib governorate tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on April 13.

The Syrian government still possesses a chemical weapons capacity, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said April 11, urging measures to prevent Damascus' potential usage of the weapons.

A US strike on a Syrian airbase ordered in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack killed four soldiers on Friday and virtually destroyed its facilities, a monitoring group said, AFP reported.

"An air commodore was among the four soldiers killed," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The United Nations failed on April 6 to produce a resolution for the second time in two days regarding the Syrian gas attack on April 4, which killed at least 86, many of them children, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun near Idlib, in the northwest of the country, because of objections by Russia, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

"Bulgaria categorically condemns the use of chemical weapons and chemical substances having a similar effect as tantamount to a war crime.

Syria's armed forces "did not and will not" use chemical weapons, even against jihadist groups, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Thursday, AFP reported.

The initials findings collected from autopsies conducted on three Syrians who died after being brought to Turkey for treatment after a suspected chemical gas attack in Syria's northern Idlib province suggests sarin gas was used in the attack, the Turkish Health Ministry said April 6. 

The death toll from a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held Syrian town has risen to 72, 20 of them children, a monitoring group said on Wednesday, cited by AFP.

"There were also 17 women among the dead and the death toll could rise further because there are people missing," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A disarmament expert from Argentina has been appointed to head an independent panel tasked with determining who is behind chemical weapons attacks in Syria, the United Nations said on Sept.15.