Genocide in Syria as 1,300 people including hundreds of women and children are wiped out in nerve gas attack say Syrian rebels as Hague warns use of chemical weapons would mark 'shocking escalation'

• Activists claim 1,300 killed in government rocket strike on residential area
• If true, it would represent the worst known use of chemical weapons since  Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988
  
• Chemical warheads hit suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar
• They hit just before dawn as families lay sleeping
• A UN team is in Syria to probe chemical weapons use by President Assad 
• Many countries have called for an immediate investigation
• French Foreign Minister has called the attack an 'unprecedented atrocity' 
• William Hague said hopes attack will 'wake up some' who support Assad
• Claims come as refugees flood into Iraqi Kurdistan

The world has looked on in horror today as graphic images emerged showing the aftermath of a dawn poison gas attack in the suburbs of Damascus that wiped out 1,300 people as they lay sleeping in their beds.

Syrian activists accuse President Bashar al-Assad's forces of launching the nerve gas attack in what would be by far the worst reported use of poison gas in the two-year-old civil war.

Activists said rockets with chemical agents hit the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar before dawn.

While these pictures of dead children are graphic, disturbing and undoubtedly the worst so far to have emerged from the conflict, MailOnline has made the decision to publish them in order to raise awareness of the plight of innocent people in a war that shows no sign of ending.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398691/Syria-Nerve-gas-attack-near-Damascus-kills-1-300-including-women-children.html#ixzz2ceDW4hQk