Missiles coming, says Trump
• US president warns Russians and Syrians that an attack is imminent in retaliation for suspected chemical attack
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that “missiles will be coming” in response to an alleged chemical attack in Syria, defying Russian warnings against a strike.
Raising the stakes in an intensifying confrontation with Moscow, Trump took to Twitter in the strongest assertion yet that he plans to take military action in Syria.
“Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!” Trump wrote.
Damascus, which has long accused Washington of supporting “terrorists” opposed to the regime, hit back at Trump’s threats. “We are not surprised by such a reckless escalation from a regime like the US which has fostered and continues to foster terrorism in Syria,” state news agency Sana quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
Trump and other western leaders have vowed a quick and forceful response to Saturday’s alleged gas attack, which rescue workers say killed more than 40 people in the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma.
Efforts to find a diplomatic solution at the UN Security Council on Tuesday failed, with Washington and Moscow opposing each other’s rival motions to set up an international investigation into chemical weapons use.
Trump in another tweet said US-Russian relations are “worse now” than ever, “and that includes the Cold War”.
Russia has taken to stronger warnings. “We would hope that all sides will avoid steps that in reality are not provoked by anything and that could destabilise the already fragile situation in the region,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“The situation is tense,” he said, adding that Russia was calling for an “unprejudiced and objective probe before making judgments” on the suspected use of chemical weapons.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova insisted that “smart rockets should be aimed at terrorists rather than the legitimate government” of Syria.
Trump has said he plans to make the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, and perhaps his Russian and Iranian backers, pay a “big” price for the latest alleged toxic gas atrocity in the war-wracked country.
The US, Britain and France have argued that the incident bears all the hallmarks of a strike ordered by the regime, which has been blamed for previous attacks by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Both Trump and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis abruptly cancelled travel plans on Tuesday as the USS Donald Cook — a guided-missile destroyer — moved to within striking range of Syria.
Air traffic control agency Eurocontrol released an alert from the European Aviation Safety Agency to flight operators in nearby airspace of “the possible launch of air strikes into Syria ... in the next 72 hours”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been co-ordinating closely with Washington, said he would decide on a response “in the coming days”.
“Our decision will not target allies of the regime ... but rather attack the regime’s chemical capabilities,” he said, insisting he did “not want an escalation”.
As it looked to head off the threat of western strikes, Syria said it had invited the OPCW to visit the site of the alleged attack in Douma, a town in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta on the verge of falling to the regime after a long and bloody siege.
The OPCW said it would “shortly” deploy a fact-finding team to Douma for an investigation, but US officials said they were working from their own information and would not necessarily hold back.
The World Health Organisation on Wednesday demanded “immediate” access to the victims of the attack.
In 2017, Trump launched a cruise missile strike against a Syrian air base in retaliation for a sarin attack the UN later pinned on Assad.