Alleged Syrian gas attacks are typically met with heartbreaking media reports and US-led missile strikes but a suspected chlorine attack in Aleppo has gone largely ignored in the West. How could this be?

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Shelling, which targeted residential areas of Aleppo on Saturday night, appears to have included a chemical attack. At least 46 people, including 8 children, were hospitalized with symptoms of chlorine gas poisoning, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

The attack on the city, which was liberated by the Syrian government two years ago, is believed to have been launched from an area within Idlib, the last Syrian stronghold of jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

So where are the emergency UN Security Council sessions? The defiant New York Times op-eds? The retaliatory Tomahawk strikes against the last jihadist enclave in Syria?

“They don’t care, because the attack is coming from the wrong side, as it were. If you check the mainstream media coverage globally, it’s a non-event,” global affairs analyst and founder of the 21st Century Wire Patrick Henningsen told RT. Henningsen also noted that the incident demonstrated that “the so-called rebels have the means, the motive and the opportunities to carry out chemical attacks against Syrians.”

But for the children poisoned in the attack, the incident was far from a “non-event.”

“It feels like something is burning inside and my eyes are hurting,” a boy, identified only as Hamza, told a film crew which documented the aftermath of the attack.

“I was at home, then a severe headache kicked in. I started to cough, but couldn’t bear it. Medicines didn’t help, so I was taken to hospital,” a woman said while speaking through an oxygen mask.

Despite crickets from the West, action has been taken to hold the belligerents accountable. Moscow announced on Sunday that the Russian Air Force had struck targets in Idlib’s demilitarized zone, from where Syrian militants are believed to have launched the chemical attack.

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