Hatla airstrike

The Hatla airstrike was an alleged event that was reported to have taken place on 12 April 2017 in the village of Hatla, in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate of Syria, at approximately 5.30pm. The Syrian Army claims the attack was carried out by the coalition led by the United States of America in Syria and destroyed a chemical weapons storage site belonging to Islamic State and that it killed "hundreds including many civilians". The US-led coalition forces deny that this event took place.
The Syrian Arab News Agency initially reported the strike.
Tom Batchelor, writing in The Independent, noted that the accusation occurred shortly after the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, writing "The accusation follows a week after Bashar al-Assad's government was accused of launching its own poison gas attack on Syrian civilians in Idlib province" and further stated that "The claim will likely be viewed by observers of the Syrian regime as an attempt to divert attention away from the alleged chemical attack by Damascus on its own people."<ref name="Independent"/> The US-led coalition said that no airstrikes took place in that area on that day. The Russian defence ministry stated that it "had no information about people killed in an attack by international coalition forces in Deir al-Zor."<ref name=Reuters />

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