Assad apologists work in UK universities: report

Senior British academics are spreading pro-Assad propaganda that the chemical weapons attacks were fake, a report published by The Times revealed.

The academics are part of an organization -- Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (SPM) -- and allegedly hold posts at top universities in Edinburgh, Sheffield and Leicester.

Members of SPM have also claimed that previous chemical weapons attacks, including the one that took place last week, were fake and staged by the Syrian civilian defense group, White Helmets, in order for the west to attack the Assad regime.

Tim Hayward, a SPM member who is professor at the University of Edinburgh, took to Twitter where he retweeted a statement claiming: "#WhiteHelmets & terrorist factions staged false flag events & kidnapped, drugged children to use as props in events, kids were buried w/out parents present."

Hayward also runs a blog in which he has published articles that claim the attacks are routinely staged by the opposition supported by the west.

The report also mentions another SPM academic Tara McCormack, who is a lecturer at Leicester University. She claimed on her Twitter account that it is "an established fact a) the White Helmets are basically Al Q[aeda]".

The Violations Documentation Centre (VDC), a research group based in Syria that documents violations of international law, believes that Bashar al-Assad regime forces are responsible for the chemical attack on April 7 that killed over 75 people and injured hundreds more.

"The Violations Documentation Center (VDC) suspects that this attack was deliberated to inflict as much possible damage on civilians. The Syrian government effectively made it very difficult for the resident population to reach ambulances and rescue teams, forced residents to seek shelter from heavy barrel bomb attacks, and then carried out airstrikes suspected to have contained poisonous gas," the organization said in a report released after the attack.

On April 14, the U.K. in coordination with the U.S. and France conducted a series of military strikes against the regime of Bashar al-Assad after it accused the latter of being responsible for the chemical weapons attack on Douma, Eastern Ghouta on April 7th.