U.N CHIEF DISPATCHES TOP OFFICIALS TO UNCOVER SOURCE OF CHEMICAL ATTACK IN SYRIA.

BEIRUT — U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday dispatched his top disarmament official to Syria to seek permission for U.N. investigators to visit a Damascus suburb where the Syrian opposition claims chemical weapons were used against civilians.

Ban instructed Germany’s Angela Kane, the U.N. high representative for disarmament affairs, to fly to Damascus to try to persuade the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to grant the U.N. team access to the site of Wednesday’s alleged chemical attack.

“The secretary general believes that the incidents reported yesterday need to be investigated without delay,” according to a statement from his office.

It said Ban wants the U.N. mission members “to be granted permission and access to swiftly investigate the incident.” The statement added: “A formal request is being sent by the United Nations to the Government of Syria in this regard. He expects to receive a positive response without delay.”

The statement was issued after France on Thursday raised the possibility of international intervention in Syria if there is solid proof that Assad’s forces used chemical weapons against his people.

Activists, meanwhile, struggled to confirm that more than 1,000 people had perished, as experts warned that vital physical evidence could dissipate unless a U.N. investigative team — already in the country to investigate previous claims of poisonous gas use — was given permission to visit the site.

An activist in the Kafr Batna neighborhood who gave his name as Anas Aldmashqi said he had personally helped to document 200 dead there. But he said only 10 names were gathered because there was nobody to identify the bodies.

“Most of the bodies are of people who just ran into the streets,” he said. “They weren’t found with IDs; they were in their sleeping gowns. Whole buildings were killed; and nobody can tell you who they were.”

Activists at the opposition Damascus Media Office said most of the dead had been buried by Thursday due to the heat and therefore may never be identified. Images posted online showed lines of dead children wrapped in funeral shrouds. In other images, the dead lay with numbers taped on their foreheads.

Although the United States, France, Britain and other nations have specifically requested that the inspection team proceed, “there is a requirement of consent in situations like this,” Deputy U.N. Secretary General Jan Eliasson said, “and also that the security situation will allow them to enter the area. It is a very dramatic situation and the security situation right now does not allow such access.”

The Syrian government on Wednesday strongly denied that there had been an attack. Butwidely circulated images of children in spasms and vomiting added to the pressure on the United States and the international community to take robust action.

The alleged attack came almost exactly a year after President Obama said the use of chemical weapons by Assad’s forces would be a “red line” for his administration
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