Hayley says US ‘ready to act’ in Syria to stop raids

THE United States is “prepared to act if we must” to stop indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Syria, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley warned on Monday as she circulated a new draft resolution demanding a ceasefire.

Addressing the Security Council 16 days after it passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire that largely has failed to stop the bombing or allow humanitarian access, Haley compared the situation today to last year when the United States launched airstrikes against a Syrian military base after a deadly chemical weapons attack.

“When the international community consistently fails to act, there are times when states are compelled to take their own action,” Haley said.

This is one of those times, she added.

“We warn any nation determined to impose its will through chemical attacks and inhuman suffering, but most especially the outlaw Syrian regime, the United States remains prepared to act if we must,” she said. “It is not a path we prefer. But it is a path we have demonstrated we will take, and we are prepared to take again.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also threatened targeted strikes in Syria, telling reporters at a news conference in India that France would retaliate if it found “irrefutable evidence” chemical weapons had been used to kill civilians.

Earlier in the Security Council, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the bombing and bloodshed in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta, a rebel stronghold, had increased since the council called for a ceasefire.

Only a limited number of convoys delivering medical supplies and food have succeeded in reaching civilians – and Syrian regime forces confiscated most of the equipment on one load, he said.

Calling the situation a calamity growing more desperate by the day, Guterres said the Syrian government and its allies – an oblique reference to Russia and Iran – had intensified their offensive so much that they have increased the territory they control in the enclave from 10 percent barely a week ago to 60 percent today.

“We have seen nothing but carnage in response to the Security Council’s resolution calling for a halt to the massacre in Eastern Ghouta,” says Arnaud Quemin, the Mercy Corps director of programs in Syria. “Conditions worsen each day. People are fleeing from one shelter to another as the front lines move.”