Trump vows prepares its
PRESIDENT Trump yesterday threatened imminent military action against Syria and Russia over the “atrocious” poison gas attack that killed at least 60 civilians.
He also put Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in his sights for what America believes was a nerve agent attack on terrified civilians packed into shelters in the besieged rebel enclave of Douma, near Damascus.
Mr Trump said military chiefs were working out who was responsible.
He said: “We’ll be making that decision very quickly, probably by the end of the day. We cannot allow atrocities like that. Nothing is off the table.”
Speaking at the White House, he said Mr Putin “may” bear responsibility, “and if he does it’s going to be very tough...Everybody’s going to pay a price. He will. Everybody will.
“If it’s Russia, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them, we’ll figure it out.”
Russia and Iran are the main backers of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad whose ruthless seven-year war against his own people is supported by Russian warplanes.
Hours earlier the crisis escalated when up to 14 people, including four Iranian soldiers, died in a raid on a Syrian air base near Homs. Damascus initially blamed the US but then pinned it on two Israeli F-15s who fired missiles from over Lebanon.
Creeping
Israel refused to comment but it was claimed the base was being used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Israeli MP Yair Lapid said: “Israel will not accept an Iranian military presence in Syria and Iran’s creeping entrenchment in Syria and this has costs.” And Housing Minister Yoav Galant said Israel was “taking action with all means, over time.”
The raid came hours after Mr Trump branded Assad an “animal” for the chemical weapons attack.
Last night the US State Department said the symptoms in Douma were consistent with those caused by asphyxiation or a nerve agent.
It follows the use of the Russian nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury last month, which left former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia fighting for their lives.
America has called on Syria and Russia to open up Douma to international inspectors.
Medical workers there reported 60 deaths, with nearly a thousand injured after at least two bombs hit a hospital and nearby buildings. More than 1,000 people were wounded, many with breathing problems.
Many of the victims were sheltering underground from a government air and ground assault. Witnesses reportedly saw a Syrian government helicopter drop a chemical cylinder. Others said they initially smelled chlorine, which can make breathing difficult and kill in high concentrations.
Professor Raphael Pitti, a doctor who saw video of the scene, said patients appeared to have had convulsions typical of sarin poisoning.
He said: “Everything suggests that during the second attack, chlorine was used to conceal the use of sarin at the same time.”
A doctor at the scene said some patients had suffered from hemoptysis, or coughing up blood, a symptom that has never been seen in previous chemical attacks in Syria.
The Syrian government denied its forces launched any chemical assault.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said such allegations were false and a provocation.
This time last year Mr Trump fired 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base used to launch a sarin attack on a rebel area that killed 89 people, including 33 children.
But as the United Nations Security Council met in New York – with Russia likely to veto any resolutions – the UN’s human rights chief slammed its “feeble condemnations”.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said: “This collective shrug to yet another possible use of one of the most ghastly weapons ever devised by man is incredibly dangerous.”
Campaigners called for the world to use this summer’s World Cup in Russia to pile pressure on Mr Putin over the “war crime”.
The head of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth said: “I think a strong case can be made that Russia shares criminal responsibility for the war crime strategy pursued by the Assad government in targeting civilians.”