Russia: Syria found German chlorine in Ghouta

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

6:15 p.m.

The spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry says Syrian troops found chlorine of German origin in the Eastern Ghouta region, which includes a town where a suspected chemical weapons attack prompted retaliatory missile strikes by the West on Syrian government targets.

Syria and its Russian backers deny that government forces were responsible for the reported attack in the town of Douma. The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed the incident was staged by Britain and a Russian general in Syria says no evidence of chemical weapons has been found in Douma. Rebels who once held the town abandoned it this month.

However, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that "Syrian government troops, in freeing the territory of Eastern Ghouta, found containers with chlorine, the most terrible kind of chemical weapon, from Germany." The statement appeared to be aimed at bolstering contentions that Syrian rebels have used chemical weapons.

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3:30 p.m.

Iraq says it has launched airstrikes in neighboring Syria against Islamic State militants.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office says Iraqi fighter jets launched "lethal" airstrikes against the extremists in an area along the border. It says the militants posed a threat to Iraq, without providing further details.

Syrian and Iraqi forces have driven IS from nearly all the territory it once held, but the extremists have maintained a presence in the remote desert areas along the border. Iraq has carried out airstrikes in Syria against the group in the past.

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1:30 p.m.

Syrian state media say hundreds of rebels fighters in a town northeast of Damascus have handed in their weapons and started to leave under an evacuation deal.

Under the agreement, the rebels are allowed to move with their families to opposition-held areas in the country's north, effectively surrendering their turf to Syrian government forces.

The state SANA news agency says the Army of Islam fighters and their families are leaving the town of Dumayr on Thursday. The report says 1,500 rebels and 3,500 of their next of kin are to leave Dumayr for the town of Jarablus, near the Turkish border.

Dumayr is in the Qalamoun mountains, near the eastern Ghouta region which came under full government control last week after a weeks-long offensive and an alleged chemical weapons attack.