‘Assad took trump warning seriously’
brussels/istanbul — The US defence secretary said on Wednesday Syria appeared to have heeded a warning from Washington not to carry out a chemical weapons attack.
But Russia, the Syrian government’s main backer, said the US assertions that President Bashar Al Assad’s forces may have been planning a chemical attack complicated peace talks on ending Syria’s sixyear-old civil war.
The White House said on Monday it appeared the Syrian military was preparing to conduct a chemical weapons attack and Assad and his forces would “pay a heavy price” if it did so.
US officials later said the warning was based on intelligence that indicated preparations for such a strike were under way at a Syrian airfield.
“It appears that they took the warning seriously,” US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Wednesday. “They didn’t do it,” he told reporters flying with him to Brussels for a meeting of Nato defence ministers. He offered no evidence other than the fact that an attack had not taken place.
Asked whether he believed Assad’s forces had called off any such strike completely, Mattis said: “I think you better ask Assad about that.”
Washington accused Syrian forces of using the airfield, the Shayrat Airbase, for a chemical weapons attack in April. Syria denies this.
However, Mattis said Syria’s chemical weapons threat was larger than any single location. “I think that Assad’s chemical programme goes far beyond one airfield,” he said.
US and allied intelligence officers had for some time identified several sites where they suspected Assad’s government may have been hiding newly made chemical weapons from inspectors, a US official familiar with the intelligence said.
The United States launched a cruise missile strike on Shayrat Airbase in April following the deaths of 87 people in what Washington said was a poison gas attack in rebel-held territory.
The Syrian military and Foreign Ministry did not comment on the White House warning although state-run Al Ikhbariya TV station said the allegations were fabricated.
Russia denounced the warning and dismissed White House assertions that a strike was being prepared as “unacceptable”.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov on Wednesday told the United States not to take unilateral actions in Syria.
He said the US assertions complicated peace talks on Syria, according to RIA news agency.
Russian officials have described the war in Syria as the biggest source of tension between Moscow and Washington and the April cruise missile strike ordered by US President Donald Trump raised the risk of confrontation between them.
In Washington, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, credited Trump with saving Syrian lives. —