Syria's Assad Regime Possess Several Tonnes Of chemical weapons: Israel

Senior Israeli defense officials have said that Syria's Bashar al-Assad is possessing up to 3 tons of chemical weapons.

"100 percent certain that the attack was 'directly ordered and planned by Assad'," Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on April 6, Reuters reported today.

However, he did not elaborate on how he reached that conclusion.

The suspected chemical attack was a "fabrication" to justify a US missile strike on Syrian regime forces, Assad said in an exclusive interview last week with AFP in Damascus. "Definitely, 100 percent for us, it's fabrication," he said.

Many leaders worldwide including Turkey President Erdoğan and U.S. President Trump have accused Assad of being behind the attack in the opposition-held town. His forces used a chemical weapon during an air strike, they said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said French intelligence services would provide proof of that in the coming days.

The suspected attack killed at least 87 people, including many children, and images of the dead and of suffering victims provoked global outrage.

The missile strike was the first direct US military action against Assad's forces since the start of Syria's civil war six years ago and precipitated a downward spiral in ties between Washington and Moscow.

Assad regime launched a chemical strike on a Syrian village that killed 87 people earlier this month.