UPDATE 1940 GMT: Journalist Rami Jarrah provides additional information about the attacks on Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib Province.
Eyewitnesses reported four missiles fired by a Russian-made Su-22 jet fighter. Local activists say intercepted radio communications indicate the warplane flew from Shayrat military airport, in the desert in Homs Province, which has been engaged in the daily bombardment of opposition areas since July 2012.
UPDATE 1930 GMT: A chemical weapons inspection team is now in Idlib Province to investigate the attacks:
.@SyriaCivilDefe @nikkihaley @PressSec @BarackObama @AJENews @KamahlAJE @POTUS This CBRN investigative team has just crossed #Turkey's border into #Idlib & is now en route to Khan Sheikhoun to collect CW evidence. pic.twitter.com/uRgI5z9UZy
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) 4 April 2017
UPDATE 1900 GMT: The White House has finally condemned the regime’s chemical attacks.
Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the mass killing is “reprehensible and cannot be ignored by the civilized world”.
He blamed it on both the Assad regime and the Obama Administration’s “weakness and irresolution” to act after citing the use of chemical weapons as a “red line.”
Earlier, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson refused to answer questions as he appeared alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
WATCH: Sec. Tillerson ignores questions about Syria chemical attack massacre. pic.twitter.com/AtTEKyHKim
— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) April 4, 2017
UPDATE 1345 GMT: Dr. Firas al-Jundi, who has been treating victims of the attacks, said the death toll is more than 100, including many children.
Jundi said the deadly agent was not chlorine but one like sarin which disrupts the nervous system.
The health minister for the opposition government, Jundi is based in the town of Maarat al-Num’an in Idlib Province.
Footage of aftermath of the attacks, with victims convulsing and foaming at the mouth (Warning — Graphic Images):
Video by SMART shows chaotic scenes faced by first responders: Victoms strewn around town, convulsing, foaming etc. https://t.co/ogyK73S9Cm pic.twitter.com/buNtIWWnDC
— Tobias Schneider (@tobiaschneider) April 4, 2017
UPDATE 1400 GMT: The international community has condemned the Assad regime’s chemical attacks.
The European Union’s foreign policy head Federica Mogherini has said, as EU ministers convened to discuss Syria, that the regime bears responsbility for the “awful” attack.
France has called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting, and British Prime Minister Theresa May called it “barbarism”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has told Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that the “inhuman” attacks could threat political discussions.
So far there has been no statement from the Trump Administration.
Meanwhile, the Assad regime’s military has denied any involvement.
A rescuer carries a child after the attacks:
Another airstrike just now on Khan Sheikhoun. Friend there: "Pray for us. Tell the world the children of Khan Sheikhoun suffocated to death" pic.twitter.com/cAbFIdOL9X
— Elizabeth Tsurkov (@Elizrael) April 4, 2017
The town’s only medical clinic and civil defense headquarters have now been hit.
The clinic after enduring eight airstrikes in a “double tap” attack — a second set of bombing as people responded to the initial strikes.
Rescuers with victims of the initial strikes:
ORIGINAL ENTRY: At least 58 people were killed and more than 300 injured on Tuesday by regime chemical weapons attacks in Idlib Province in northwest Syria, according to witnesses and medical staff.
The “gas attack” was carried out just after 6 a.m. on the town of Khan Sheikhoun. Photographs showed victims, some with foam around their mouths, in the street and being treated by rescuers.
Civilians targeted today w/chemicals,scores killed & injured,no final numbers yet. @SyriaCivilDef teams working on moving,dealing w/victims pic.twitter.com/8Oxi7c4YHW
— Raed Al Saleh (@RaedAlSaleh3) April 4, 2017
The regime has carried out a series of chemical attacks in recent months, from the assault to reoccupy all of Aleppo Province to strikes in northern Hama Province — including on a hospital — in the past week to bombardment of Idlib Province. Pro-Assad airstrikes also reportedly killed more than 80 people in a chemical attack on Islamic State-held territory in eastern Homs Province.
The attacks have been with chlorine canisters dropped inside barrel bombs, but the symptoms of today’s victims and the scale of the casualties are leading to concerns that a stronger agent — such as sarin, which killed more than 1,400 people in the regime’s attacks near Damascus in August 2013 — may have been used, instead of or in combination with chlorine.
On Sunday, pro-Assad airstrikes knocked out the national hospital in Ma’arat al-Num’an, which had been treating victims of the attacks.
Pinpoint pupils in a victim, a symptom of exposure to organophosphates like sarin:
Pinpoint pupils in a patient exposed to Organophophorus gas attack(Sarine).
With @DrShajulIslam now at the hospital treating this victims. pic.twitter.com/5du2wP75M0— Omar Ibrahim (@Neurosurg_Omar) April 4, 2017
Claimed video of young victims (WARNING — VERY GRAPHIC):
Children killed by an Assad regime chemical weapons attack, carried out under @mod_russia protection & over-watch. pic.twitter.com/tFKQjW1MqN
— Mr Grey Ghost (@Mr_Ghostly) April 4, 2017
Victims being hosed down to remove chemicals from their skin and clothes:
Victims of today's chemical attack being hosed down in an attempt to remove chemical agent from their skin & clotheshttps://t.co/vRzgt6FCBU pic.twitter.com/Cj2Y8H5zId
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) April 4, 2017
More footage of victims being treated: