Chemical attack averted
US warns Syria on strike
US DEFENCE Secretary Jim Mattis said yesterday that the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad appeared so far to have heeded a warning this week from Washington not to carry out a chemical weapons attack.
Russia, the Syrian government’s main backer in the country’s civil war, warned that it would respond proportionately if the US took preemptive measures against Syrian forces to stop what the White House says could be a planned chemical attack.
The White House said on Monday it appeared the Syrian military was preparing to conduct a chemical weapons attack, and said that Assad and his forces would “pay a heavy price” if it did so.
The warning was based on intelligence that indicated preparations for such a strike were under way at Syria’s Shayrat airfield, US officials said.
“It appears that they took the warning seriously,” Mattis said.
Washington accused Syrian forces of using the Shayrat airfield for a chemical weapons attack in April. Syria denies this.
The intelligence that prompted this week’s warning was “far from conclusive”, said a US official familiar with it. “It did not come close to saying that a chemical weapons attack was coming.”
The intelligence consisted of a Syrian warplane being observed moving into a hangar at the Shayrat airbase, where US and allied intelligence agencies suspect the Assad government was hiding chemical weapons, said a second US official.
Mattis said: “I think that Assad’s chemical programme goes far beyond one airfield.”
The US launched cruise missile strikes on Shayrat in April in response to the deaths of 87 people in what Washington said was a poison gas attack.
The Syrian government did not comment on the White House warning, although staterun al-Ikhbariya television sta- tion said the allegations were fabricated.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday that Moscow would respond if the US took measures against Syrian government forces.
“We will react with dignity, in proportion to the real situation that may take place,” he said.
Russian officials have described the war in Syria as the biggest source of tension between Moscow and Washington, and say the April cruise missile strike ordered by US President Donald Trump raised the risk of confrontation between them.
In Washington, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, credited Trump with saving Syrian lives.
“Due to the president’s actions, we did not see an incident,” Haley said. “I would like to think that the president saved many innocent men, women and children.”
Although the number of people killed in suspected chemical attacks is a small portion of the total dead in Syria’s civil war, estimated at close to half a million, footage of victims writhing in agony has caused particular revulsion. – Reuters