Chemical attack

"I now have responsibility, and I will have that responsibility and carry it very proudly," Trump said responding to a question about a White House statement Tuesday that blamed the attack in part on President Barack Obama.

"It is now my responsibility. It was a great opportunity missed," Trump said.

Trump did maintain that Obama's failure to respond to his red line threat "was a blank threat (that) set us back a long ways, not only in Syria but in many other parts of the world."

The President condemned the attack as "heinous."

The patients, who are being treated in hospital in nearby Irbil, are "showing clinical symptoms consistent with an exposure to a blistering chemical agent," said Robert Mardini, the organization's regional director for the Middle East.

The five children, three women and four men have symptoms that include blisters, coughing, redness in the eyes, irritation, and vomiting.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said preliminary reports indicated a married couple and their four children were killed in one of many airstrikes to hit the al-Sakhour neighborhood in Aleppo's besieged east. The group said chlorine gas was used in the bombardment.

he Aleppo Media Center (AMC) activist group also reported that the family was killed and posted a photo of the aftermath on Twitter. The AMC said a barrel bomb containing chlorine gas was dropped on the neighborhood from helicopters.