The US administration now says it has ''high confidence'' that President Bashar al-Assad's forces have killed up to 150 people with sarin gas.
Although that's a tiny percentage of the approximately 93,000 killed in the war so far, the use of a chemical weapon crosses President Barack Obama's ''red line'' for escalating US involvement in the conflict and prompted the decision to send arms and ammunition.
The administration's plan heading into the G8 meeting beginning on Monday is to use the chemical weapons announcement and Obama's decision on arms to persuade Russia to increase pressure on Assad to send a credible negotiating team to Geneva for talks with the opposition.
In addition, Obama is expected to use the G8 meeting and discussions on the sidelines to further co-ordinate with the British, French and potentially others an increase of assistance - lethal, non-lethal and humanitarian - to the rebels, the political opposition and refugees.
In a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, UN Ambassador Susan Rice said the United States had determined that sarin was used in a March 19 attack on the Aleppo suburb of Khan al-Assal and in an April 13 attack on the neighbourhood of Shaykh Maqsud.
She said unspecified chemicals, possibly including chemical warfare agents, were used on May 14 in an attack on Qasr Abu Samrah and in a May 23 attack on Adra.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said on Friday that Moscow didn't believe the US finding on chemical weapons.
''I wouldn't like to draw parallels with the famous dossier of Secretary of State Colin Powell, but the facts, the information presented by the US didn't look convincing,'' he said.
The comment indeed drew a parallel with Powell's speech to the UN asserting pre-war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, a claim that proved false.
Ushakov also suggested that sending weapons to the opposition would diminish Moscow's interest in negotiations in Geneva.
Alexey Pushkov, chairman of Russia's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, wrote on his Twitter account on Friday that "the data on Assad's use of chemical weapons were faked in the same place as the lie about (Saddam) Hussein's weapons of mass destruction," referring to the deposed Iraqi dictator.
"Obama is going down the route of G. Bush," he added, in reference to former US President George W. Bush's assertion - never proven, but used to justify the invasion of Iraq - that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Ban has voiced opposition to the US decision to send arms to the Syrian rebels.
The UN chief said no one can be certain chemical weapons were used without an on-the-ground investigation.
Increasing the flow of arms to either side ''would not be helpful,'' he said.
Chemical weapons experts say they've yet to see the telltale signs of a sarin gas attack, despite months of scrutiny.
''It's not just that we can't prove a sarin attack; it's that we're not seeing what we would expect to see from a sarin attack,'' said
Jean Pascal Zanders, a leading expert on chemical weapons who until recently was a senior research fellow at the European Union's Institute for Security Studies.
Foremost among those missing items, Zanders said, were mobile phone photos and videos of the attacks or the immediate aftermath.
Philip Coyle, a senior scientist at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC, said that without hard, public evidence, it was difficult for experts to assess the validity of the administration's statement.
The Syrian government dismissed the US charges as "full of lies" accusing Obama of resorting to fabrications to justify his decision to arm Syrian rebels.
The commander of the main rebel umbrella group welcomed the US move.
The US decision to begin arming the rebels, though details have not been completed, marks a deepening of US involvement in Syria's two-year civil war.
It comes as President Bashar Assad's forces have been scoring victories, driving rebels out of a key town near the Lebanese border and launching offensives in the center and north, targeting Aleppo, the nation's largest city.
US officials said the administration could provide the rebel fighters with a range of weapons, including small arms, ammunition, assault rifles and a variety of anti-tank weaponry such as shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades and other missiles.
However, no final decisions have been made on the type of weaponry or when it would reach the rebels, according to the officials, who insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal administration discussions with reporters.
"The White House has issued a statement full of lies about the use of chemical weapons in Syria based on fabricated information," a statement issued on Friday by the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.
"The United States is using cheap tactics to justify President Barack Obama's decision to arm the Syrian opposition," it said.
The commander of the main Western-backed rebel group fighting in Syria said he hoped that US weapons will be in the hands of rebels in the near future, noting it would boost the spirits of the fighters on the ground.
"We hope to have the weapons and ammunition that we need in the near future," Gen. Salim Idris told Al-Arabiya TV.
"This will surely reflect positively on the rebels' morale, which is high despite attempts by the regime, Hezbollah and Iran to show that their morale after the fall of Qusair deteriorated," he said, referring to the town near the border with Lebanon.
Mr Assad's forces, aided by fighters from Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah, captured Qusair on June 5, dealing a heavy blow to rebels who had been entrenched in the strategic town for over a year.
Since then, the regime has shifted its attention to recapture other areas in the central Homs province and Aleppo to the north.
The regime's advances have added urgency to US discussions on whether to provide the rebels with weapons.
The decision came a day after the United Nations said nearly 93,000 people have been confirmed dead in Syria's civil war, but the actual number is believed to be much higher.
Mr Obama's deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, said Mr Obama was planning to step up military assistance to Syrian rebels.
Mr Ushakov warned that providing such assistance could derail efforts to convene a Syria peace conference.
The main opposition coalition has already said it would not attend, all but scuttling the initiative.
Associated Press writer Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this report from Moscow.
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