By Ben Hubbard @ NYTimes.com, April 18

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A United Nations security team was fired on in the Syrian town of Douma, raising doubts on Wednesday about when international investigators would be able to visit the site of what was suspected to have been a chemical attack [....] 

The investigators were originally scheduled to visit the site on Monday but did not. On Tuesday, the Syrian government said the team had not been able to go for security reasons, although it had allowed a number of journalists to visit Douma. Some of those journalists visited the site of the attack and interviewed residents who lost members of their family [....] the fact that journalists had been able to wander around Douma unmolested raised questions about why it was not deemed safe enough for the investigators to visit.

On Wednesday, Ahmed Uzumcu, the director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, told a meeting of the group’s executive council that a security team from the United Nations had gone to do reconnaissance in Douma on Tuesday. During a visit to one site, a large crowd gathered and the security team left, Mr. Uzumcu said. At another, the team “came under small-arms fire and an explosive was detonated,” he said. The team left and returned to Damascus unharmed, but it was not clear when the investigators would be able to visit Douma, Mr. Uzumcu said [....]