Today in Syria:

The deadliest chemical weapons attack in years in Syria killed dozens of people in northern Idlib province on Tuesday morning, including children, and sickened scores more, according to medics, rescuers and witnesses in the rebel-held province, who said the gas had been delivered by a government airstrike.

A few hours later, according to several witnesses, another airstrike hit one of the clinics treating victims, who had been farmed out to smaller hospitals and maternity wards because the area’s largest hospital had been severely damaged by an airstrike two days earlier.

That’s a favorite trick of terrorist groups – set off bomb 1 and then when rescuers gather to help the injured, set off bomb 2.

It was one of the worst atrocities attributed to the Syrian government since President Trump took office. Only on Friday, administration officials stressed that ousting Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, was no longer a priority, and that Washington’s main goal was to fight the Islamic State.

Well, you know. Putin. Russia. The ties of friendship.

Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, further told reporters that “these heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the last administration’s weakness and irresolution.”

Mr. Spicer declined to respond to questions about Mr. Trump’s declaration that his administration’s policy in Syria is not regime change.

“He is not here to telegraph what we are going to do, but rest assured he has been speaking with his national security team this morning,” Mr. Spicer said, adding later: “The statement speaks for itself.”

He is not here to telegraph what we are going to do? Is that right? It sounds pretty autocratic, to me. It sounds as if he thinks he’s entirely unaccountable…like a dictator.

Numerous photographs and graphic videos posted online by activists and residents showed children and older adults gasping and struggling to breathe, or lying motionless in the mud as rescue workers ripped off victims’ clothes and hosed them down. The bodies of least 10 children lay lined up on the ground or under a quilt.

…

While chlorine gas attacks have become almost routine in northern Syria, this one was different, medical workers and witnesses said. Chlorine attacks usually kill just a few people, often those trapped in an enclosed space, and the gas dissipates quickly.

This time, people collapsed outdoors, and in much larger numbers. The symptoms were also different: They included the pinpoint pupils of victims that characterize nerve agents and other banned toxins. One doctor posted a video of a patient’s eye, showing the pupil reduced to a dot. Several people were sickened simply by coming into contact with the victims.

A rebel fighter in the area rushed to the scene on his motorcycle to help. As he approached his eyes started burning and he felt suffocated, then he passed out.

He said he woke up an hour later at a clinic, after receiving injections and oxygen. “Kids were all over the floor, some dead and others struggling to breathe,” he said. “The noise of them trying to breath was loud, with foam all over their faces.”

That’s today in Syria.