A new analysis of rockets linked to the nerve-agent attack on Damascus, Syria, in August has concluded that the rockets were most likely fired by multiple launchers and had a range of about three kilometers, according to the two authors of the analysis.

The authors said that their findings could help pinpoint accountability for the most lethal chemical warfare attack in decades, but that they also raised questions about the American government's claims about the locations of launching points, and the technical intelligence behind them.

The new analysis could point to particular Syrian military units involved, or be used by defenders of the Syrian government and those suspicious of the United States' claims to try to shift blame toward rebels.

The rockets in question were not seen before the Syrian civil war. There is little publicly available information about their internal construction, their manufacturing provenance or their flight characteristics.

But remnants of expended rockets have been videotaped and photographed, including at sites in eastern Damascus that were struck by sarin-filled warheads on Aug. 21.

That attack is broadly believed to have caused at least hundreds of civilian deaths. It led the Obama administration, which blamed the government of President Bashar al-Assad, to threaten military action. That threat was deferred in mid-September after Russia and the United States reached an agreement to dismantle the Syrian government's chemical weapons program.

The authors of the new analysis —Theodore A. Postol, a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Richard M. Lloyd, an analyst at the military contractor Tesla Laboratories — evaluated the exteriors of the implicated rockets, visible in videos and photographs. The analysis suggested that they were propelled by motors taken from a common family of 122-millimeter conventional artillery rockets known as the BM-21, the authors said.

The BM-21 line is a globally abundant system of ground-to-ground rockets, colloquially called Grads, that originated in the Soviet Union but have been reproduced and updated by many countries, including post-Soviet Russia, China, Egypt and Iran. Both the Syrian army and the rebels possess them.

An examination of the territory to the northwest of the cluster of reported impact strikes shows many positions that have been firmly under military control throughout 2013, including factories and a bus station complex that are part of Mr. Assad's defense around his seat of government.

Eliot Higgins, a blogger who has collected and analyzed many online videos related to the attack, the munitions and the Syrian government's military positions in Damascus, said the new analysis of the rockets' range aligned with assertions that the government was culpable.

"A range of beyond 2.5 kilometers would put potential launch sites in an area between Jobar and Qaboun, to the north and northwest of the impact locations, that has been a hive of government activity for months," Mr. Higgins wrote in an email on Friday.

But the analysis could also lead to calls for more transparency from the White House, as Dr. Postol said it undermined the Obama administration's assertions about the rockets' launch points.

On Aug. 30, the White House released its assessment of the attack, saying that, among other forms of intelligence, "satellite detections corroborate that attacks from a regime-controlled area struck neighborhoods where the chemical attacks reportedly occurred."

Dr. Postol said those statements created a public impression that the rockets had been launched from areas at the center of government control.

"It is clear that if the U.S. government's claims that the allegedly observed launches came from 'the heart' of Syrian government controlled areas, there is a serious discrepancy between the meaning of this claim, the technical intelligence it relies on, and the technical properties of this munition," he wrote.

Using published data about characteristics of motors in various Grad rockets and derivatives, Dr. Postol and Mr. Lloyd calculated potential maximum ranges for the sarin-filled rockets, with an emphasis on a common Grad variant's motor.