A boy, affected by what activists say is toxic gas, breathes through an oxygen mask. (REUTERS)
UNSPEAKABLE PAIN: A man holds the body of an infant yesterday in a makeshift morgue, while a young survivor bares his anguish. (Reuters)
(Reuters)
UNSPEAKABLE PAIN: A man holds the body of an infant yesterday in a makeshift morgue, while a young survivor (inset) bares his anguish. (
)
A horrific poison-gas rocket attack early yesterday killed as many as 1,300 Syrians — including sound-asleep children .
The ghoulish 3 a.m. strike by forces loyal to dictator Bashar al-Assad could prove to be the world’s deadliest known chemical attack since Iraqi butcher Saddam Hussein massacred thousands of Kurds with chemicals in 1988.
The United States and other countries called for UN examiners to investigate the attack as disturbing images from the lethal chemical bombing emerged.
Scores of bodies, including those of small children, lay on the floor of a clinic with no visible signs of injuries, according to Reuters, which said the cause of deaths could not be verified.
“Many of the casualties are women and children,” a nurse at a medical center told Reuters.
“They arrived with their pupils constricted, cold limbs and foam in their mouths. The doctors say these are typical symptoms of nerve-gas victims.”
Other stomach-turning videos showed both children and adults in makeshift hospitals, some of them coughing and foaming at the mouth with no outward sign of injury.
Last year, President Obama warned Assad that using chemical weapons would be tantamount to crossing a “red line.”
In June, the White House concluded that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons.
Obama then pledged military support to rebel groups, an effort that’s still in the works.
Witnesses said the bombing began as victims slept in three neighborhoods under opposition control east of Damascus. The bombardment lasted several hours.
It came three days after a UN team arrived in Damascus to investigate three sites where chemical-weapons attacks have allegedly taken place in the past year.
A leading opponent of the Assad regime, George Sabra, put the death toll at 1,300. An opposition monitoring group claimed a death toll of 494 — with 90 percent killed by gas.
“Today’s crimes are . . . not the first time the regime has used chemical weapons, but they constitute a turning point in the regime’s operation,” Sabra said at a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey. “This time it was annihilation rather than terror.”
The Syrian government denied that it has used chemical weapons.
“All what has been said is ridiculous and naive, unscientific, illogical and subjective,” said Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi, speaking on state television.
The bloody two-year Syrian civil war has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people.