Assad ‘spreading terror with new chemical attacks’

Britain and America are investigating claims that the Syrian government has carried out a series of new chemical attacks in the suburbs of Damascus.

British officials said yesterday that they were “aware of multiple allegations” of chemical attacks designed, it is alleged, to terrorise opposition-controlled areas around the capital.

It is claimed that the regime is using toxic industrial substances, rather than weaponised chemicals, as a ploy to spread fear, but on a scale not quite large enough to trigger an international military response