Reports of chemical gas attacks in 2 Syrian cities

Two chemical gas attacks have been reported in northern Syria, one in the region where a Russian helicopter was downed a day earlier, killing all five people on board, CNN reports.

In the first alleged attack, cylinders suspected of containing chlorine gas were dropped in residential areas in the city of Saraqeb in Idlib province, the anti-regime, voluntary search-and-rescue group Idlib Civil Defence said in a statement posted to its Facebook page.

Russia, Syria's key military backer, has vehemently denied that a chemical attack took place. In a press release carried by Russian and Syrian state news agencies, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the claims of chlorine usage were fabricated by the media.

In the second alleged incident, the Syrian government claimed that "terrorist groups" carried out a gas attack that killed five people in the old town of the besieged city of Aleppo on Tuesday afternoon, according to the state-run news agency SANA.

"Five civilians were killed and eight others suffered suffocation due to a terrorist attack with shells containing poisonous gas," the city's health director Mohamad Hazouri told SANA, which reported two others were killed and 17 others injured in separate terrorist attacks in the city Tuesday.

Aleppo is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Saraqeb.