U.N. chemical-weapons inspectors in Syria met and took samples from victims of an apparent poison-gas attack in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus on Monday after the U.N. team survived a sniper attack on their convoy. U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said a U.N. vehicle was "deliberately shot at multiple times" in the buffer zone area between rebel- and government-controlled territory. He said the vehicle was destroyed, but the team was safe. The inspectors had arrived in Moadamiya, a western suburb of the capital and one of the areas where the alleged chemical-weapon attack occurred. The team met with doctors and victims at a makeshift hospital. A Syrian doctor told Reuters from Moadamiya that U.N. investigators had crossed the frontline from the center of the capital, which remains under the control of forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. "I am with the team now," the doctor who uses the name Abu Karam said by telephone from rebel-held Mouadamiya. "We are in the Rawda mosque and they are meeting with the wounded. Our medics and the inspectors are talking to the patients and taking samples from the victims now."
