"My entire family's gone": Syrian man says 25 relatives died in strike

Abdul Hamid Youssef says the attack shook him from a deep sleep.
He awoke, finding it difficult to breathe.

Leaping from bed, Youssef scrambled to make sure his 9-month-old twins were still alive. Apparently unharmed, he passed them to his wife and told her to stay in the house.

Rushing outside to check on his parents next door, Youssef passed people staggering and falling in the street.

Youssef and many members of his extended family live on the northern edge of Khan Sheikhoun, a town in Syria’s Idlib province. On Tuesday, airstrikes battered an area near their local bakery, meters from Youssef’s home.

But it wasn’t just any attack — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons in the strikes that rattled the rebel-held area while many were still sleeping.