BBC News with Nick Kelly
Syria has said it will allow the United Nations weapons inspectors to visit the site of the suspected chemical attack last week in the Damascus suburbs. The inspection will begin on Monday. The UN said the government had agreed to observe ceasefire in the area while the team visited the site. Rajini Vaidyanathan reports. "The announcement by Syrian authorities to allow UN's weapons inspectors in, has been met with scepticism in Washington. A senior administration official said, if the country had nothing to hide, it would have granted inspectors an immediate access, and that this decision was too late to be credible. There is also concern that any evidence collected would have been significantly corrupted as a result of what the US says has been persistent shelling in the area of the alleged attack."
A French spokesman said President Francois Hollande had spoken today to President Obama and told him that in his view the evidence was consistent with the conclusion that Damascus used chemical weapons. The British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain was focused on delivering a strong response. "We are clear in the British government that it was the Assad regime that carried out this chemical attack, large scale chemical attack, as Wednesday that has led to the death, the agonizing death of so many hundreds of people including, tragically, so many children. Of course, this is a regime that possesses chemical weapons stockpiles and has used chemical weapons in the past including on a smaller scale over the last year." But Russia has warned against those who were, in its words, trying to impose their own results on the investigation before it has taken place, and so raise the possibility of military intervention in Syria. State media in Syria says that the governor of Hama, which has seen some of the worst fighting in the conflict, has been killed. It says the Dr. Anas Abdul-Razzaq Naem died in a car bomb attack in the city. Dr. Abdul-Razzaq was appointed governor more than two years ago as the uprising against President Assad gathered momentum. Rebels have carried out assassinations against a number of politicians and senior military officials.