'Chemical weapons' used for first time in Syria as conflict escalates
Residents of an area that has been reportedly targeted with chemical weapons in Syria were said to be showing symptoms including breathing difficulties in an incident that could cross US "red lines" on intervention in the conflict.
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent1:12PM GMT 19 Mar 2013
A spokesman for Syria's rebel command said the regime had fired Scud missile equipped with a chemical warhead on the area. The official newsagency, Sana, said the attack had occurred in Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo, killing 25 people. Syria has one of the worldâs largest stockpiles of chemical weapons
Barack Obama, the president of the US, has previously warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a "red line" that could trigger an American intervention.
A Reuters photographer on the scene said the victims were sent to four hospitals in government-controlled areas of Aleppo and some were having trouble breathing. "I saw mostly women and children," he said. "They said that people were suffocating in the streets and the air smelt strongly of chlorine." "People were dying in the streets and in their houses," he said over the phone after visiting the University of Aleppo hospital and the al-Rajaa hospital.
Twenty-six people were killed in the rocket attack, a human rights monitoring group with a network of sources of the ground said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...of-killing-25-in-chemical-weapons-attack.html
Residents of an area that has been reportedly targeted with chemical weapons in Syria were said to be showing symptoms including breathing difficulties in an incident that could cross US "red lines" on intervention in the conflict.
By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent1:12PM GMT 19 Mar 2013
A spokesman for Syria's rebel command said the regime had fired Scud missile equipped with a chemical warhead on the area. The official newsagency, Sana, said the attack had occurred in Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo, killing 25 people. Syria has one of the worldâs largest stockpiles of chemical weapons
Barack Obama, the president of the US, has previously warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a "red line" that could trigger an American intervention.
A Reuters photographer on the scene said the victims were sent to four hospitals in government-controlled areas of Aleppo and some were having trouble breathing. "I saw mostly women and children," he said. "They said that people were suffocating in the streets and the air smelt strongly of chlorine." "People were dying in the streets and in their houses," he said over the phone after visiting the University of Aleppo hospital and the al-Rajaa hospital.
Twenty-six people were killed in the rocket attack, a human rights monitoring group with a network of sources of the ground said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...of-killing-25-in-chemical-weapons-attack.html