US not ruling out Syria military action after new chemical attacks
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has not ruled out military action to stop chemical weapons attacks in Syria, senior administration officials said, signaling a intensified effort to press the Assad regime and its Russian patrons.
In the wake of yet more suspected sarin and chlorine attacks blamed on the regime, Washington said it wants to send a message to Bashar al-Assad and Moscow that enough is enough.
The latest unconfirmed attack came on Thursday, in the rebelheld town of Douma.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people suffered respiratory problems after a rocket attack.
A senior US official told AFP that military options against Damascus similar to those launched in April 2017 were always on the table and ‘always feasible.’ Trump “hasn’t excluded anything” in the bid to halt the programme, the official said.
A second senior US official reported evidence that Assad’s regime has a “ongoing production capability” focused on sarin and chlorine and is developing new ways to deploy the chemicals banned for weapons use.
“It looks like they are trying to evolve for either military reasons or to escape accountability. It is incredibly important to stop that before it gets off the ground,” the official added. Aside from the threat to Syrian civilians, Washington is worried that a wave of well-documented chemical attacks – systematically denied by Damascus and Moscow – is undermining longstanding taboos on their use.
“We are convinced that if the international community does not take action now,” the second official said, “we will see more chemical weapons use, not just by Syria but by non-state actors.”
“That use will spread to US shores, if we cannot stop it.”
The Assad regime appears to have altered course only slightly since the United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syrian airfield in 2017 after a large chemical attack on rebelheld Khan Sheikhun. —