BEIRUT, Lebanon — Antigovernment activists accused the Syrian government of pounding areas east of the capital, Damascus, with rockets carrying poison gas early Wednesday, saying that people had been killed in their sleep and that local hospitals were filled with casualties.
Amateur videos posted online showed medics, with hand-pump respirators, trying to revive people laid out on floors and hospital gurneys, along with images of rooms full of bodies. The source of the images could not immediately be verified, and the government of President Bashar al-Assad denied the allegations of a chemical weapons attack.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/world/middleeast/syria.html