5 dead in Syria 'chemical gas' attacks

Damascus: The Syrian government claimed a "terrorist group" carried out a gas attack that killed five people in the city of Aleppo on Tuesday, according to the state-run news agency SANA. "Five civilians were killed and eight others suffered suffocation due to a terrorist attack with shells containing poisonous gas," the city's health director Mohamad Hazouri told SANA. The claims were made after an activist group said a chlorine gas attack had been carried out in the nearby Idlib province. It was unclear if the attacks have any connection. "Cylinders suspected of containing chlorine gas were dropped in residential areas in a northern Syrian city on Tuesday," the anti-regime, voluntary search-and-rescue group Idlib Civil Defence said in a statement posted to its Facebook page. The Syrian National Council, a coalition of opposition groups, blamed the Assad regime for the alleged attack and called on the United Nations to "shoulder its responsibilities towards stopping such attacks". The alleged attack occurred in the same province where a Russian helicopter was shot down on Monday, killing all five people on board. Members of Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham (erstwhile Al-Nusra Front) have a strong presence in Idlib province, as do other rebel groups fighting against the Syrian regime. Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham recently severed its ties to Al Qaeda.