Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces bombarded rebel-held suburbs of Damascus on Thursday, August 22 activists said, keeping up pressure on the besieged region a day after the opposition accused the army of gassing hundreds in a chemical weapons attack, Reuters reported.

With Wednesday's death toll estimated between 500 and 1,300, what would be the world's most lethal chemical weapons attack since the 1980s prompted an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York.