Haley: Pictures of dead children in Syria chemical attack ‘not fake news’

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.) Nikki Haley accused Russia on Saturday of orchestrating an aggressive disinformation campaign following a suspected chemical weapons strike in Syria, but insisted that Moscow could not cover up the attack.

“We can all see that a Russia disinformation campaign is in full force this morning,” Haley said at a U.N. Security Council meeting after retaliatory U.S.-led strikes in Syria. “But Russia’s desperate attempts at deflection cannot change the facts.”

“The pictures of dead children were not fake news,” she added. “They were the result of the Syrian regime’s barbaric inhumanity. And they were the result of the regime and Russia’s failure to live up to their international commitments to remove all chemical weapons from Syria.”

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Haley’s comments came hours after President Trump, in concert with the United Kingdom and France, launched “precision strikes” on targets in Syria believed to be associated with the country’s alleged chemical weapons program.

The allied strike on Syria came days after a suspected chemical weapons strike in the Damascus suburb of Douma that officials in the U.S. and several Western countries have blamed on the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Syria and its allies, Russia and Iran, have denied that Assad’s government used chemical weapons in the attack, which left more than 40 people dead.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Saturday launched an investigation into the alleged chemical strike in Douma.

Moscow, Damascus and Tehran condemned the Friday night strikes on chemical weapons production facilities in Syria, accusing the U.S., France and the U.K. of violating international law and committing an aggression against a sovereign country. 

The Pentagon said Saturday that a Russian disinformation campaign had already begun in response to the allied strike in Syria.