Trump ‘is poised to hit Syria’
DETAILED plans for American military action in Syria are being prepared, it emerged last night.
President Donald Trump is weighing up making a direct intervention with his forces after Tuesday’s poison gas atrocity, a Washington official confirmed.
American strikes would be a massive development in the six-year conflict.
However, use of force risks the US clashing with Russia, the main backer of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Thus far, Mr Trump has said he would not step in against the Assad regime.
But he called the suspected nerve agent attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, which led to the agonising deaths of 86 people including at least 27 children, ‘an affront to humanity’.
AMERICA’S military chiefs are drawing up detailed plans for military action in Syria, it emerged last night.
President Donald Trump is taking soundings in Washington over launching direct intervention in the wake of Tuesday’s poison gas atrocity, a US official confirmed.
American military action would be a game-changing development in the bloody six-year conflict – and risks the US clashing with Russia, the main military backer of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Mr Trump has previously insisted he would not step in against Assad.
But he appeared to have been deeply affected by the suspected sarin nerve agent attack on the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, which led to the agonising deaths of 86 people including at least 27 children.
Harrowing footage showed adults and children staggering through the town’s streets, foam pouring from their mouths as they fought to breathe.
Mr Trump said last night that ‘something should happen’ with Assad, but stopped short of saying the Syrian leader should be drummed out of office. ‘I think what Assad did is terrible,’ he told reporters travelling with him on Air Force One to a summit with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Florida. He called the use of sarin poison gas an ‘egregious crime’, adding: ‘It shouldn’t have happened. And it shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
‘I think what happened in Syria is a disgrace to humanity and he’s there, and I guess he’s running things, so something should happen.’
An unnamed US official told reporters last night that the Pentagon and the White House are in detailed discussions on military options.
He also claimed Mr Trump was consulting senior Washington political figures about a military move – although this was later denied by Mr Trump.
US defence secretary Jim Mattis was expected to discuss the plans in a meeting with Mr Trump, due to take place last night at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida.
White House national security adviser H R McMaster is also involved in discussions, the official added.
Turkish officials said yesterday that post-mortem tests had suggested victims died after exposure to sarin.
In The Hague, the international watchdog The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it had made contact with the Syrian authorities amid growing calls for a war crimes investigation into the attack.
Assad has denied using chemical weapons, but international outcry over the attack appeared to have weakened his backing from Moscow, his key international ally.
A Kremlin statement said allegations of a chemical attack were ‘groundless’ and called for a ‘detailed and unbiased investigation’, but Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said support for the Assad regime was not unconditional.
Mr Trump said on Wednesday that the haunting images of child victims of the attack on Khan Sheikhoun had prompted a dramatic change in his position on Syria. And America’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, signalled that the US could take unilateral action.
The president denounced the chemical attack as ‘an affront to humanity’ and said Assad had crossed ‘many, many lines’. Mr Trump said: ‘That attack on children had a big impact on me. Big impact. My attitude towards Syria and Assad has changed very much.’
In stark contrast to the inward-looking nature of his inauguration speech in January, the president admitted he had a major role to play in addressing the slaughter.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has spoken by phone with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov about the gas attack, a State Department official said last night. ‘We sought the Russian analysis or readout of what they thought had happened,’ he added.
Mr Tillerson confirmed that the US was considering an ‘appropriate response’ to the chemical weapons attack.
German chancellor Angela Merkel said that it was a ‘scandal’ the UN Security Council did not pass a resolution demanding an investigation, after Russia threatened to veto it.
UN humanitarian adviser Jan egeland said he hoped the international furore would be a ‘watershed moment’ in the six years of civil war in Syria.
But in Khan Sheikhoun, a father who lost his wife, their twin children and 20 other members of his extended family said they had been ‘martyred’ by the international community’s failure to act.
Abdul Hamid Youssef, 29, had to be supported by friends as he staggered between the makeshift graves of his nine-monthold twins Ahmed and Ayia, their mother, his two brothers and other family members.
‘Something should happen’