Russia warns US not to attack Syrian regime

USA - Russia warned the United States about taking direct action against the Syrian regime, saying it would cause negative consequences across the Middle East, Russia’s state-run Sputnik news agency reported Saturday. Meanwhile, intense fighting continued in the besieged Syrian city Aleppo on Saturday, with one of the main hospitals bombed by Russianbacked Syrian forces.

Sputnik reported that Russian’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, “If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian army, it will lead to terrible, tectonic shifts not only on the territory of this country but also in the region in general.” She said the United States risked creating a power vacuum in Syria were it to depose Syrian President Bashar alAssad. Such a power vacuum would be filled by “terrorists of all sorts,”

Secretary of State John Kerry, in a meeting with a group of Syrian civilians last week, expressed sympathy for their demands that the United States intervene more forcefully amid Syrian and Russian airstrikes, according to an audio recording obtained by CNN. He told the group that he “lost the argument” for using military force against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“I’ve argued for the use of force. I’m the guy who stood up and announced that we’re going to attack Assad for the use of weapons,” Kerry is heard telling the Syrian attendees, referring to internal deliberations within the administration of President Barack Obama that followed Assad’s use of chemical weapons in 2013. (CNN)