Kerry calls apparent chemical attack in Syria 'moral obscenity'

US Secretary of State John F. Kerry has condemned last week's apparent poison gas attack in Syria as a 'moral obscenity'.

Kerry declared that President Barack Obama believed those responsible must be held accountable.

He also made a case for a forceful response against President Bashar al-Assad's government.

According to the Los Angeles Times, he said evidence of a chemical attack that caused 'the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians' in the suburbs of Damascus early on August 21 was undeniable.

Meanwhile, a United Nations chemical weapons team began gathering evidence in Damascus on Monday after initially being forced back by sniper fire.

But officials said that the fact-gathering process could take weeks, and Kerry preemptively dismissed their visit as too late to be credible, the report said.

He also dismissed Syria's claims that insurgents fired poison gas to draw the West into the war on their side, the report added.