SAN DIEGO (AP) — A spokesman for the family of a man suspected of kidnapping a 16-year-old Southern California girl and killing her mother and brother wants DNA samples to determine if the suspect fathered the children.

Andrew Spanswick told KGTV-TV in San Diego that there are rumors that James Lee DiMaggio fathered both children and that it's odd that the suspect named their maternal grandmother as a life insurance beneficiary. A spokeswoman for Hannah Anderson's family disputes the suggestion, saying DiMaggio didn't meet Hannah's mother until she was six months pregnant with her.

Anderson family spokeswoman Stacy Hess also says Brett Anderson's DNA was used to confirm the identity of 8-year-old Ethan Anderson, whose remains were found Aug. 4.

The DiMaggio family spokesman didn't immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press.

The United States called Wednesday for a United Nations investigation into horrific reports that Syria’s government used chemical weapons in a deadly attack on opponents of Bashar Assad, including women and children. Washington also pushed for urgent U.N. Security Council talks on the alleged incident.

“The United States is deeply concerned by reports that hundreds of Syrian civilians have been killed in an attack by Syrian government forces, including by the use of chemical weapons, near Damascus earlier today,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

Earnest did not confirm reports from anti-Assad activists that chemical weapons had been used but said the United States was “working urgently to gather additional information.”

“Today, we are formally requesting that the United Nations urgently investigate this new allegation,” the spokesman said.

Earnest said a team of U.N. investigators — already in Syria to look into previous allegations of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime — was prepared, qualified and empowered to carry out such a probe.

“If the Syrian government has nothing to hide and is truly committed to an impartial and credible investigation of chemical weapons use in Syria, it will facilitate the U.N. team’s immediate and unfettered access to this site,” Earnest said.

“We have also called for urgent consultations in the U.N. Security Council to discuss these allegations and to call for the Syrian government to provide immediate access to the U.N. investigative team,” he said.

“For the U.N.’s efforts to be credible, they must have immediate access to witnesses and affected individuals, and have the ability to examine and collect physical evidence without any interference or manipulation from the Syrian government,” Earnest said.

“The United States strongly condemns any and all use of chemical weapons,” he declared. “Those responsible for the use of chemical weapons must be held accountable.”

Earnest's statement came after Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned against an escalating U.S. military role in Syria's civil war.

Dempsey, the country’s top uniformed military commander, also warned against greater U.S. military involvement because while “we can destroy the Syrian air force,” such a step would “escalate and potentially further commit the United States to the conflict."

"Syria today is not about choosing between two sides but rather about choosing one among many sides," Dempsey wrote in an Aug. 19 letter to Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It is my belief that the side we choose must be ready to promote their interests and ours when the balance shifts in their favor. Today, they are not."

If confirmed, and if the death toll cited by Assad foes is accurate, it could be the worst chemical weapons attack since Saddam Hussein’s government killed as many as 5,000 Iraqi Kurds with poison gas in the city of Halabja in 1988.

The United States should not intervene militarily in Syria’s civil war because rebels battling Bashar Assad’s regime aren’t prepared to promote American interests if the tide shifts in their favor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said in a letter released Wednesday.

Dempsey, the country’s top uniformed military commander, also warned against greater U.S. military involvement because while “we can destroy the Syrian Air Force,” such a step would “escalate and potentially further commit the United States to the conflict."

"Syria today is not about choosing between two sides but rather about choosing one among many sides," Dempsey wrote in the Aug. 19 letter to Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "It is my belief that the side we choose must be ready to promote their interests and ours when the balance shifts in their favor. Today, they are not."

Instead, he suggested, America should provide humanitarian aid on a “far more significant scale” and “significantly increase our effort to develop a moderate opposition to Assad.”

Dempsey’s letter became public amid news of a possible chemical weapons attack by Assad’s regime against the opposition. If confirmed, and if the death toll cited by Assad foes is accurate, it could be the worst chemical weapons attack since Saddam Hussein’s government killed as many as 5,000 Iraqi Kurds with poison gas in the city of Halabja in 1988.

The White House had no immediate response to the reports.

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement responding to Dempsey’s letter that he was “deeply unsatisfied with our current strategy in Syria” and charged that the United States was content to “stand on the sidelines” of the conflict.

“I reject the notion that our involvement in Syria would simply constitute ‘choosing sides’ between one armed group and another,” Engel said. “Rather, our involvement represents a choice between hastening the end of the Assad regime or continuing to allow the cycle of violence, displacement, and terror to continue unabated.”

Engel warned that “until we are prepared to severely diminish the regime’s ability to inflict harm upon its own citizens and even the playing field — such a moderate opposition stands little chance against the regime’s scuds, tanks, and planes.”

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — The United States has placed unprecedented sanctions on an Islamic school in northwest Pakistan for allegedly training and financing fighters from al-Qaida and other militant groups.

The sanctions against Jamia Taleem-Ul-Quran-Wal-Hadith Madrassa, also known as the Ganj Madrassa, in the city of Peshawar were the first to target an Islamic school, the U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a statement Tuesday.

Critics long have accused radical Islamic schools in Pakistan of indoctrinating young boys and training them to become militants.

The U.S. also placed sanctions on a man accused of being al-Qaida's leader in the Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan. Umar Siddique Kathio Azmarai also has been a significant financial facilitator for the group, moving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support operations, and managed logistics for Osama bin Laden's family members, the U.S. said.

"Today's action strikes at the heart of the financial and logistical support network that abuses charitable donations and provides essential services for various terrorist groups" including al-Qaida, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, said David Cohen, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. "We will continue to work with our partners around the world to dismantle these terrorist networks, especially those that try to conceal their sinister activities behind critical community organizations like madrassas."

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Pakistani cleric Alam Sher founder of the Jamia Taleem-Ul-Quran-Wal-Hadith Madrassa, talks to media, …

The sanctions mean that any assets they may have under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen, and people in the U.S. are generally prohibited from doing business with them.

The U.S. said the Ganj Madrassa is controlled by a man known as Sheik Aminullah who was sanctioned by Washington and the United Nations in 2009 for providing material support to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

"The Ganj Madrassa serves as a terrorist training center where students, under the guise of religious studies, have been radicalized to conduct terrorist and insurgent activities," the U.S said in its statement. "In some cases, students were trained to become bomb manufacturers and suicide bombers."

In an interview with The Associated Press, one of the school's administrators denied it had any links with militant groups.

"The institution is purely a religious school, and is not connected with any organization or involved in any sort of illegality or promotion of extremism," said Alam Sher, who is in his 80s and helped found the school some 25 years ago.

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Pakistani religious students rest at the Jamia Taleem-Ul-Quran-Wal-Hadith Madrassa, in Peshawar, Pak …

Sher said Aminullah was a teacher at the school until he left nine months ago. School officials do not know where he is currently, he said.

The U.S. sanctions would not affect the school because it doesn't get any foreign aid and relies on public donations and income from Sher's soap factory, the administrator said.

The three-story school is located in a congested part of Peshawar and houses at least 150 students, mostly from poor families, Sher said. The school includes a mosque, classrooms and a hostel for the students.

Many people are concerned that the hundreds of madrassas across the country may become a training ground for extremists. Many parents, frustrated with a public school system widely viewed as dysfunctional, send their children to madrassas because they're free and in hopes that their children will get an education.

Ahmar Bilal Soofi, who served as the law minister in the interim government, said there has been little movement to reform madrassas which operate with little outside oversight.

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People gather outside the Jamia Taleem-Ul-Quran-Wal-Hadith Madrassa, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Wednesda …

"The concern was that they should be registered," he said. "Their financial management should have some oversight. There should be a uniformity of a syllabus that is taught to the madrassa students."

Peshawar has been plagued with militant attacks in recent years as the government has battled domestic Taliban militants and their allies. The government has also been fighting a low-level insurgency by separatists in southwest Baluchistan province for decades.

A blast at a train ticket counter in Chaman, a town in Baluchistan near the Afghan border, killed at least one passenger Wednesday and wounded 10 others, said a senior local government official, Ibrahim Ismail. The blast took place minutes before a train was to leave for Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

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Pakistani religious students attend the Jamia Taleem-Ul-Quran-Wal-Hadith Madrassa, in Peshawar, Paki …

A mysterious sea creature featuring what appear to be horns on its head was discovered in the advanced stages of decomposition along the shoreline of Luis Siret Beach in Villaricos, Spain, on Thursday.

A woman first discovered the head and then found the body farther down the beach, according toThinkSpain.com. The entire carcass with the head stretched 13 feet.

“A lady found one part and we helped her retrieve the rest,” said Maria Sanches of Civil Protection in Cuevas. “We have no idea what it was. It really stank.”

The find caused widespread speculation as to what it could be, some humorously suggesting it was a link to the Loch Ness Monster or was some sort of sea dragon or water dinosaur. Others surmised it was a mutant fish or some sort of shark species. The best guess here is an oarfish.

“It’s hard to know what we’re dealing with,” A PROMAR (Programa en Defensa de la Fauna Marina-Sea Life Defense Program) spokesman Paco Toledano told Ideal.es Ameria, according to Inexplicata. “It’s very decomposed and we cannot identify what it is.

“Perhaps we could learn something more from the bones, but to be precise, it would be necessary to perform a genetic analysis, which is very expensive and who would pay for it?

“Anyway, we have submitted the information to colleagues with more experience and knowledge to see if they can tell us something more specific.”

Toledano did shed some light on the horns of the sea creature, however. He said they are actually bones that have fallen out of place.

“It’s not a longhorn cowfish, that’s for sure,” he joked.

Photos from Ideal.es Ameria Facebook page.