“Each of these assaults constitutes a war crime”, said Widney Brown, PHR’s director of programs.
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Government troops managed to seize two hilltops including Telat al-Mahroukat and the villages of Khweriz and al-Amriyeh, which the rebels took control of two days ago, the Observatory said.
The anti-regime fighters are seeking to capture Ramussa, a district in Aleppo’s southwest suburbs, in a bid to cut off government forces and open a new route into the city for rebels.
The army has been fighting back with the help of Russian air strikes to stop the rebels breaking through.
Reports of the alleged chemical attacks came as a CNN stringer in rebel-held eastern Aleppo said intense airstrikes and artillery assaults were under way in the area – the fiercest bombardment in the five years of the conflict, he said.
Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, has been divided since 2012 between the eastern half, controlled by rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, and the west, controlled by forces belonging to or allied with the regime.
But a chemical-weapons adviser to non-government organisations in Syria, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, says Saraqeb marks the latest of several attacks he has witnessed himself.
Rebels detonated a bomb in a tunnel underneath a government position in the Ramouseh area, the observatory said.
There is “fighting in too many places, and that affects the besieged towns more than anything else”, humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said, adding that the United Nations failed to reach its goal of helping 1.2 million Syrians during the two-month period. The government rejected the claim and accused the rebels of using chemical weapons themselves.
In the Saraqeb attack, the gas, which the statement said smelled like chlorine, caused 30 cases of breathing difficulties, the Idlib Civil Defence – also known as the White Helmets – said. Reports are saying that helicopters flew overnight and dropped containers with toxic chemicals many believe was chlorine.
Kerry said the attacks prevented the warring parties from meeting Monday, the target date set for the regime and opposition to agree on the framework for political transition. Assad has denied previous accusations of using chemical weapons.
Elsewhere, UN agencies said they had completed the first delivery since June of desperately needed food and hygiene supplies to more than 75,000 Syrians trapped on the border with Jordan.
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“These are imaginary corridors, false corridors only to show the global community that they are working on humanitarian issues with the Russian side”, he said.
