A chemical weapons watchdog investigation has confirmed sarin was used in the deadly April 4 attack on Syrian town Khan Sheikhoun.

Analysis of samples taken from a deadly sarin gas attack in Syria earlier this month "bears the signature" of President Bashar Assad's government and shows it was responsible for the deadly assault, France's foreign minister has said.

Russia has been told it must choose between aligning itself with the US and like-minded countries or embracing Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iran and militant group Hezbollah.

While most of the world has agreed to destroy these deadly weapons, the attack in Syria this week shows the urgency of the situation, writes Caroline Alexander

A suspected government chemical attack in an opposition-held town in northern Syria has killed dozens of people.

Iraq's United Nations ambassador has said there is no evidence that the Islamic State extremist group used chemical weapons in an attack in Mosul, the country's second-largest city.

Russia has offered to provide samples linked to alleged chemical weapon use in the Syrian city of Aleppo to the international chemical weapons watchdog.

A Syrian government airstrike on an opposition-held district in Aleppo has killed at least two people.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has proposed that a new international body should be set up to assign blame for chemical attacks in Syria’s deadly conflict.

Suspected chlorine gas attacks by Syrian government helicopters injured some 40 people and killed a child in the country’s northwest, activists said today, a day after an international chemical weapons watchdog said it was ready to investigate a series of newly claimed attacks.

Kurdish forces in Iraq are investigating two other possible chemical weapons attacks by the Islamic State group, a top official has said.

Pakistani rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who survived being shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education, has pledged while on a trip to Nigeria to help free a group of schoolgirls abducted by Islamist militants.

Syria has handed over the remaining 100 tonnes of toxic material it declared to the global chemical weapons watchdog, clearing the way for destruction of the stockpile at sea, sources said yesterday.

The international chemical weapons watchdog says it will send a team to Syria to investigate recent allegations about the use of chlorine gas in the country’s civil war.

More than 45% of the raw materials for Syria’s poison gas and nerve agent programme scheduled for destruction outside the country have been shipped out, the world’s chemical weapons watchdog has said.

Edward Snowden was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian politicians, including a former government minister, for contributing to transparency and global stability by exposing a US surveillance programme.

The Obama administration is offering to destroy some of Syria’s deadliest chemical weapons in international waters using a US government ship.

Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has rejected a request from the United States for the tiny impoverished Balkan nation to host the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.

The international chemical weapons watchdog is meeting in the Netherlands to endorse a plan to destroy Syria’s deadly poison gas and nerve agent arsenal, most likely outside the country.

Syria has provided video and photographic evidence that shows a chemical weapons site near war-torn Aleppo has been dismantled and abandoned, weapons inspectors have said.

Israeli warplanes attacked a shipment of Russian missiles inside a Syrian government stronghold, officials said yesterday.

Syria has completed destruction of critical equipment for producing chemical weapons and filling munitions with poison gas, an official at the global chemical weapons watchdog said today.

Syria has filed details of its poison gas and nerve agent programme and an initial plan to destroy it to the world’s chemical weapons watchdog, the organisation announced yesterday.

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has jokingly said that he should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a pro-Damascus Lebanese newspaper has reported.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) won the Nobel Peace Prize for working to eliminate the scourge that has haunted generations from the First World War to the battlefields of Syria.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

The UN Security Council has agreed to proposals by secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons by a target of the middle of next year, diplomats said.

The UN secretary-general has recommended that about 100 people from the United Nations and the world’s chemical weapons watchdog be part of a joint mission to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons.

International inspectors began destroying Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons and the machinery used to create it, a United Nations official said yesterday, racing under a tight deadline aiming to eliminate president Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons programme within nine months.

International inspectors began destroying Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons and the machinery used to create it, a United Nations official said on Sunday.

The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously last night to secure and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, in a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating conflict.

The inspectors responsible for tracking down Syria’s chemical arms stockpile and verifying its destruction plan to start work there by Tuesday. They will face their tightest deadlines ever and work right in the heart of a war zone, according to a draft decision.

The five permanent members of the deeply-divided United Nations Security Council have agreed on a resolution to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons.

Ireland is to help bankroll the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria with €200,000 in funding.

Technical experts are reviewing a further disclosure from Syria about its chemical weapons programme, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has said.

Tunisian women have travelled to Syria to wage “sex jihad” by comforting Islamist fighters battling the regime there, interior minister Lotfi ben Jeddou has told MPs.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says it has received an “initial declaration” from Syria outlining its weapons programme.

Tough-talking John Kerry opened swiftly-convened talks on Syria’s chemical weapons by bluntly rejecting the country’s pledge to begin a “standard process” by turning over information rather than weapons – and nothing immediately.

Syria has said it accepts Russia’s proposal to place its chemical weapons under international control for subsequent dismantling.

Russia’s foreign minister has said the evidence put forward by the United States of chemical weapons use in Syria apparently does not meet stringent criteria for reliability.

The United Nations will investigate the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria, which would be “a crime against humanity”, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced

Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad declared Damascus International Airport a “legitimate target” today in a bid to cut off regime supplies, as clashes between government troops and rebels forced the closure of the airport road for the second time this week.

LIBYAN dictator Muammar Gaddafi had an undeclared stockpile of chemical weapons, international inspectors have confirmed.

Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had an undeclared stockpile of chemical weapons, international inspectors have confirmed.