UN extends Syria gas probe

The UN Security Council has approved a one-year extension of an international inquiry to determine blame for chemical weapons attacks in Syria, paving the way for a showdown over how to punish those responsible.

The report came as at least 49 people were killed in heavy government air strikes in the eastern part of Syria's largest city, Aleppo, witnesses and activists said yesterday.

The overnight bombardment, which began late on Thursday, was part of a wider military escalation by the Syrian government and its allies against opposition groups holed up in Aleppo.

With the latest victims, the total number of people killed in the besieged city since Bashar al-Assad's government launched its military offensive on Tuesday has climbed to 150.

Russia had said it wanted the UN inquiry to be broadened to look more at the "terrorist chemical threat" within the region, and the resolution to renew the mandate included language to reflect that request.

The 15-member council unanimously adopted the US-drafted resolution.

The inquiry by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, set up by the council a year ago, has already found that Syrian government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks and that Islamic State militants had used mustard gas.

Syria's government has denied its forces had used chemical weapons during the country's nearly six-year-old civil war.

Last week, the OCPW's executive body voted to condemn the use of banned toxic agents by the Syrian government and Islamic State militants.

Chlorine's use as a weapon is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria joined in 2013. If inhaled, chlorine gas turns to hydrochloric acid in the lungs and can kill by burning lungs and drowning victims in the resulting body fluids.