Trump vilifies ‘animal Assad’ for suspected gas attack

President Trump lashed out Sunday against a suspected chemical weapons attack by Syrian government forces on civilians, ripping “that animal Assad” and laying blame for the Syrian president’s power on Russia, Iran and even former president Barack Obama.

Trump’s tweets came hours after the White Helmets, a civil defense force in rebel-held areas of Syria, said entire families were gassed to death Saturday night in Douma and Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus, the capital. The group, which put the death toll at more than 40, said many residents were hiding in cellars and suffocated.

Syrian state media said Sunday that rebel forces led by the Army of Islam had agreed to leave Douma within 48 hours as Syrian leader Bashar Assad

tightened his grip on rebel strongholds around Damascus.

“Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world.”

The attack came less than a week after Trump, speaking about Syria, declared: “I want to bring our troops back home.” A day later, however, the White House signaled that a U.S. withdrawal from Syria was not imminent.

Sunday on Twitter, Trump demanded that the area be opened up for medical help and verification of a chemical attack, which would constitute a war crime. He called the attack another “humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!”

Trump blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran for supporting Assad. Trump also blamed Obama for allowing Assad to cross his “state Red Line in the Sand.” If Obama had acted years ago, Trump said, the Syrian war would have ended long ago and Assad would have passed into history.

The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Monday to discuss the suspected chemical attack, the Associated Press reported. The meeting was called by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Kuwait, Peru and the Ivory Coast.

Reuters said the U.N. Security Council would meet twice on Monday after a request from Russia as well to discuss “international threats to peace and security.”

A statement from U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called on all parties to cease fighting.

“The Secretary-General is particularly alarmed by allegations that chemical weapons have been used against civilian populations in Douma,” it said. “While the United Nations is not in a position to verify these reports, the Secretary-General notes that any use of chemical weapons, if confirmed, is abhorrent, and requires a thorough investigation.”

The attack came a year to the day after Trump authorized a military strike on a Syrian government airfield after a sarin gas attack killed at least 85 people in Khan Shaykhun.

Russia said Sunday that allegations of a chemical attack are a ruse aimed at justifying military strikes by foreign forces and warned of grave consequences for retaliation.

“It is necessary to once again caution that military intervention under false and fabricated pretexts in Syria, where the Russian servicemen stay at the request of the legitimate government, is absolutely unacceptable and may trigger the gravest consequences,” Russia said on its U.S. Embassy’s Facebook page.

The White Helmets said more than

500 people, most of them women and children, were brought to medical centers with symptoms consistent with exposure to a chemical agent. Patients showed signs of respiratory distress, burned eyes, foaming of the mouth and other symptoms that included “emission of chlorine-like odor,” the group said.

The reports could not immediately be independently verified. Syria called the claims “fabrications,” and Iran and Russia also denied the accusations.

The civil war has been raging in Syria for seven years. The toll has been horrifying: The U.N. estimates more than

400,000 people have died. Another

5 million have fled the country, and

6 million have abandoned their homes but remain within the beleaguered nation of less than 20 million people.