AS GERMANY and the US blamed Russia and Iran for the plight of civilians in Syria’s second city Aleppo, Russian experts claimed yesterday that insurgents had used chemical weapons there.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said soil and shell fragment samples taken from the south-western suburbs, scenes of heavy fighting over the past month, had tested positive for chlorine and white phosphorus.

He added that bioassays from four Syrians exposed to the munitions had been taken for testing. Maj-Gen Konashenkov urged the UN’s Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to send a team to Aleppo to probe the use of banned weapons of mass destruction by al-Qaida-affiliated extremists and their Western-backed allies.