august 21 2013 syria gas kills hundreds security council meets. dominic evans khaled yacoub oweis. syrias opposition accused government forces of gassing hundreds of people on wednesday by firing rockets that released deadly fumes over rebel-held damascus suburbs killing men women and children as they slept. with the death toll estimated between 500 and 1300 what would be the worlds most lethal chemical weapons attack since the 1980s prompted an emergency meeting of the u.n. security council in new york. the council did not explicitly demand a u.n. investigation of the incident although it said clarity was needed and welcomed u.n. chief ban ki-moons calls for a prompt investigation by the u.n. inspection team in syria led by ake sellstrom. an earlier western-drafted statement submitted to the council seen by reuters was not approved. the final version of the statement was watered down to accommodate objections from russia and china diplomats said. moscow and beijing have vetoed previous western efforts to impose u.n. penalties on assad. syrian information minister omran zoabi said the allegations were illogical and fabricated. president bashar al-assads officials have said they would never use poison gas against syrians. the united states and european allies believe assads forces have used small amounts of sarin before hence the current u.n. visit. immediate international action is likely to be limited with the divisions among major powers that have crippled efforts to quell 2 1/2 years of civil war still much in evidence. russia backed up syrian government denials by saying it looked like a rebel provocation to discredit assad. britain voiced the opposite view: i hope this will wake up some who have supported the assad regime to realize its murderous and barbaric nature foreign secretary william hague said on a visit to paris. france britain the united states and others called for an immediate on-site investigation by u.n. chemical weapons inspectors who arrived in the syrian capital only this week. moscow urging an objective inquiry said the very presence of that team suggested government forces were not to blame. u.s. president barack obama has made the use of chemical weapons by assads forces a red line that in june triggered more u.s. aid to the rebels. but previous smaller and disputed cases of their deployment have not brought the all-out military intervention rebel leaders have sought to break a stalemate. u.s. senator john mccain a republican critic of obamas syria policy said on twitter that failure to penalize previous gas attacks had emboldened assad: no consequence for assad using chemical weapons & crossing red line he said. we shouldnt be surprised hes using them again. images including some by freelance photographers supplied to reuters showed scores of bodies - some of them small children - laid on the floor of a clinic with no visible signs of injury. some showed people with foam around their mouths. a boy who survived from what activists say is a gas attack cries as he takes shelter inside a mosque in the duma neighbourhood of damascus august 21 2013. reuters/mohamed abdullah the united states and others said it had no independent confirmation that chemical weapons had been used. the u.n. chief ban said the head of the inspection team in damascus was already discussing the latest claims with the government. sleeping dead opposition activists cited death tolls ranging from about 500 to - by one account - some 1300 after shells and rockets fell around 3 a.m. (0000 gmt) on wednesday. in 1988 3000 to 5000 iraqi kurds were gassed by saddam husseins forces at halabja. one man who said he had retrieved victims in the suburb of erbin told reuters: we would go into a house and everything was in its place. every person was in their place. they were lying where they had been. they looked like they were asleep. slideshow (21 images) doctors interviewed described symptoms they believe point to sarin gas one of the agents western powers accuse damascus of having in an undeclared chemical weapons stockpile. an opposition monitoring group citing figures compiled from clinics in the damascus suburbs put the death toll at 494 with 90 percent killed by gas the rest by bombs and conventional arms. the rebel syrian national coalition said 650 people died. activists said rockets with chemical agents hit the damascus suburbs of ain tarma zamalka and jobar during a fierce pre-dawn bombardment by government forces. the damascus media office said 150 bodies were counted in hammouriya 100 in kfar batna 67 in saqba 61 in douma 76 in mouadamiya and 40 in erbin. a nurse at douma emergency collection facility bayan baker said: many of the casualties are women and children. they arrived with their pupils constricted cold limbs and foam in their mouths. the doctors say these are typical symptoms of nerve gas victims. extensive amateur video and photographs appeared on the internet showing victims choking some foaming at the mouth. a video purportedly shot in the kafr batna neighborhood showed a room filled with more than 90 bodies many of them children and a few women and elderly men. most of the bodies appeared ashen or pale but with no visible injuries. other footage showed doctors treating people in makeshift clinics. one video showed the bodies of a dozen people lying on the floor of a clinic. a voice-over said they were members of a single family. in a corridor outside lay another five bodies. syria is one of just a handful of countries that are not parties to the international treaty that bans chemical weapons and western nations believe it has caches of undeclared mustard gas sarin and vx nerve agents. additional reporting by erika solomon in beirut and anthony deutsch in amsterdam niklas pollard in stockholm and thomas grove in moscow louis charbonneau and michelle nichols in new york; writing by peter graff dominic evans and alastair macdonald; editing by will waterman and peter cooney our standards:the thomson reuters trust principles.
syria gas kills hundreds security council meets