Syria rebels ordered 10 tons of sarin nerve agent in Turkey

A Turkish prosecutor filed a report to the court in the Southern Turkish city of Adana, showing Syria militants have been ordering and receiving chemical material from Turkey. On May 28 Turkish security forces found a 2-kg cylinder with sarin gas after searching the homes of terrorists from the Al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front who were previously detained. According to media reports, sarin gas was found in the homes of suspected Syrian militants detained in provinces of Adana and Mersia following a search by Turkish police. Five Turks and a Syrian citizen, named Haitam Kassapwho, who were arrested on the case for allegations of buying chemical weapons in Turkey, have pleaded not guilty, according to the English-language Hurriyet Daily News, which quoted from the indictment. Prosecution attorney objected the ruling and presented the court with a 132-page document which contained evidence of the suspects’ links to terrorist groups in Syria including al-Nusra Front and Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic States of Iraq and Levant (Ahrar al-Sham), a report by the Voice of Russia said. The document says that radical Salafi groups set up a channel for carrying out terrorist attacks inside Turkey. According to the document al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham group had tried to buy large amounts of sarin nerve gas and chemical substances used in manufacturing poisonous materials. The prosecution believes that the suspects have links to Syrian groups close to Al-Qaeda and their leaders and were buying chemical materials from Turkey to send into Syria. Citing telephone calls made by the suspects, the document shows they ordered at least ten tons of chemicals in total. "The claim that the suspects didn’t know about the possibility of producing sarin nerve gas from the chemicals they tried to buy is not true which was established when they were testifying," the document says. Syrian government has already filed several reports to the United Nations on multiple chemical attacks carried out by foreign-backed militants during the bloody insurgency that has gripped the country since March 2011. Conflicting reports of an alleged chemical attack near Syrian capital emerged on August 21, which the anti-Syria militants blamed on the Syrian government and prompted US threats of attacking the country. Syria has categorically denied using chemical weapons and says the attack was a false-flag operation by the militants to open the way for US military action. On Friday Syria become a full member of the global anti-chemical weapons treaty to show its commitment to ban of using chemical weapons.