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The UN claims vehicles carrying its weapons inspectors sent to Damascus to investigate an alleged chemical weapons strike have been shot at by unidentified snipers. No casualties have been reported but one of the vehicles was damaged. The regime of President Basher al-Assad granted the UN inspectors access to the area on Sunday. Doctors on the ground are convinced that toxic agents were used in the attack. Francoise Saulnier is from Doctors Without Borders: �Around 3,000 patients sought help within a few hours, so there was a massive contamination with patients showing symptoms of respiratory distress, convulsions, loss of consciousness and death. These are the clinical signs of poisoning by chemical agents.� The US and its allies believe heavy government shelling in the area over the past five days will have destroyed any evidence of the toxic attack and that permission to probe the site came too late.