Syria attack: Russia proposes site visit

: Russia said on Tuesday it will propose to the United Nations that international inspectors visit the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack in the Syrian town of Douma, a move which follows US President Donald Trump’s warning of quick, forceful action in response to the incident.

At least 60 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured at several sites in the alleged attack on Douma, then still occupied by rebel forces, on Saturday, according to a Syrian relief group.

President Bashar al-Assad’s government and Russia, his most powerful ally, said there was no evidence that a gas attack had taken place and the claim was bogus.

But the incident has thrust Syria’s seven-year-old conflict back to the forefront of international concern and brought the possibility of Western military action against Assad’s forces.

Further heightening the volatility, Iran, Assad’s other main ally, threatened to respond to an air strike on a Syrian military base which Tehran, Damascus and Moscow have blamed on Israel.

Meanwhile , thousands of militants and their families arrived in rebel-held northwestern Syria after surrendering Douma to government forces. The evacuation deal restores Assad’s control over the entire eastern Ghouta formerly the biggest rebel bastion near Damascus. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the Kremlin would submit a resolution to the Security Council proposing that inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons investigate the alleged attack in Douma.

BEIRUT/MOSCOW