The Obama administration has refused to send gas masks and other chemical-weapons protection gear to Syrian opposition groups, despite numerous requests dating back more than a year and until the reported chemical-weapons attack that struck the Damascus suburbs August 21. …

In a June email to several administration officials, viewed by The Daily Beast, Saleem begged the U.S. to provide gas masks in advance of further chemical-weapons attacks and warned that without them, the civil war in Syria would only result in more casualties.

“The repeated use of chemical weapons by the Assad army is preventing achieving any balance on the ground, and as such, it is one of the factors that is preventing reaching a fair political solution,” Saleem wrote. “The international community’s quick intervention and with all possible methods to prevent Assad from using chemical weapons against his people is an ethical and legal duty. This is not possible until there is will by the international community, and therefore, there should be no more delays in providing means of preventing its effects.”

Other activists on the ground in Syria told The Daily Beast that their requests to the Obama administration for gas masks date back more than a year and have been ignored or rejected at every turn.