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 A Syrian military source described the report of an attack in the
village of Sarmin in Idlib province as propaganda. "We confirm that
we would not use this type of weapon, and we don't need to use it,"
the source said.
President Bashar al-Assad's government has previously denied
accusations that it has used chemical weapons in the four-year-old
war. Officials were not available for comment.
An army statement said dozens of militants were killed in other
areas of Idlib province overnight in clashes and attacks.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks
the conflict through a network of sources, said the six dead
included a man, his wife and their three children. It cited medical
sources as saying they died as a result of gas from barrel bombs
dropped late on Monday and that the chemical used was likely
chlorine.
Dozens more were wounded in the attack, the Observatory said.
Reuters could not independently verify the report.
The Idlib branch of the Syrian Civil Defense rescue organization,
which operates in insurgent-held areas, posted seven videos on
YouTube, some at nighttime and some in a medical center.
 One video showed three children and a woman, all apparently
unconscious, in a medical center. A voice off camera said the name
of the village, Sarmin, and Monday's date.
"One of the infants, only a few months old," a male voice says,
shaking, as he films a baby on a gurney with liquid around its
mouth. Two more infants with limp bodies are brought in, one by a
man wearing a gas mask and another carrying a young girl.
"She's still alive doctor," a man checking the girl says. "Doctor,
doctor, she is still breathing."
The Syrian Civil Defense includes more than 2,000 humanitarian
volunteers, known as the "White Helmets" for the hard hats they
wear, who work as first responders in a country where the medical
infrastructure has broken down.
Another video posted by the group and shot at nighttime showed a
very young girl, naked except for underwear and pink shoes, being
doused in liquid by people wearing white helmets, her horrified
expression illuminated by their headlamps shining on her face.
The Syrian Civil Defense said on Twitter there had been more than
100 casualties, including its own volunteers.
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The reports came a day after Kurds in neighboring Iraq said that
Islamic State insurgents used chlorine gas against military police
and peshmerga forces in December and January. An officer said the
gas was used three times, and that a number of military police were
treated in hospital.
A U.N. inquiry found in late 2013 that sarin gas had likely been
used in several rebel-held districts of the Syrian capital Damascus
in August 2013, where hundreds of people were killed.
The inquiry was only looking at whether chemical weapons were used,
not who used them. The government and the opposition have each
accused the other of using chemical weapons during the civil war
which has killed 200,000. Both sides deny it.
Assad agreed with the United States and Russia to dispose of his
chemical weapons after hundreds of people were killed by sarin gas
on the outskirts of the capital.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons also said
it had "compelling evidence" that chlorine gas was used in
rebel-held villages in northern Syria last year. It did not say who
carried out the attack.
Opposition activists have reported many chlorine attacks over the
past year, which they said occurred when explosive canisters were
dropped from army helicopters.
Khaled Khoja, president of the opposition National Coalition, blamed
Assad on Tuesday for the most recent reported attack: "The
psychopathic dictator continues to kill by chemicals and challenges
the international laws."
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Dominic Evans)
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