No one is saying Assad is a nice guy, but the rebels here are CIA and al qaeda. Why would Assad order a gas attack after the Obama admin said there were no chemical weapons there in 13 and when he's about to receive help from Russia and or Annoying Orange. Looks like a false flag to me.
The rebels and CIA are two completely different groups that constantly war with each other. The rebels are mostly remnants of the FSA and parts of the pro-regime forces that defected due to the events of the arab spring. Occasionally, those soldiers will defect to CIA, but they aren't at all affiliated or allied.
The syrian civil war began in 2012, there's a high chance that some new weapons have been introduced in the 4 years between the start of the war and now. All context and prior knowledge of the start of the civil war shows that the regime has no problem killing civilians as part of collateral damage, and actively uses censorship and murder as tools to suppress peaceful protests. With that key knowledge in mind, it's more than likely that Assad and his regime would pull something like this, but it's still being investigated.
The victims report they saw planes and chemical weapons being dropped from the sky, so if they find any evidence of debris of chemical weapons, we'll know who dropped them. The only actors operating in syrian airspace are US, Russian, Turkish and Syrian forces.
