TRUMP WARNS OF ‘BIG PRICE TO PAY’ FOR DOUMA ATTACK
President lashes out at Assad, Russia and Iran over use of chemical weapons
US President Donald Trump yesterday condemned a chemical attack on a rebel-held town in Syria, which killed dozens of people, and warned there would be a “big price to pay”.
At least 48 people died in the attack on Douma late on Saturday, most of them women and children, activists and rescuers said.
Mr Trump slammed the “mindless chemical attack” and blamed Iran and Russia for supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
Iran yesterday responded to accusations about the attack by saying it was a conspiracy against its ally, Mr Al Assad, and a pretext for military action.
“Such allegations and accusations by the Americans and certain western countries signal a new conspiracy against the Syrian government and people, and a pretext for military action,” Iran’s foreign ministry said.
Syria and Russia have also denied that a chemical attack took place.
The attack comes almost exactly a year after Mr Trump ordered US missile strikes on a Syrian airbase last April in response to a sarin gas attack on the north-western town of Khan Sheikhoun, which killed at least 80 people.
Mr Trump’s Homeland Security Adviser, Thomas Bossert, noted the timing of Saturday’s attack.
“This isn’t just the US,” Mr Bossert said. “This is one of those issues on which every nation, all peoples, have all agreed on since World War Two. It’s an unacceptable practice.”
Asked if there could be another US missile strike in response, he said: “I wouldn’t take anything off the table. These are horrible photos. We’re looking into the attack at this point.”
Douma is the last rebel-held town in the Eastern Ghouta region – a collection of Damascus suburbs – after nearly two months of bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces.
Syrian state media announced that the Jaish Al Islam rebel group holding the town had yesterday resumed negotiations for a withdrawal and had later agreed to leave within 48 hours.
There was no confirmation from the rebels.
The chemical attack came on the second day of a renewed government offensive on Douma after a lull of several days last week.
Syria’s White Helmets, who act as first responders in rebel-held areas, said the attack took place late on Saturday using “poisonous chlorine gas”.
The Syrian American Medical Society and the White Helmets said more than 500 people were taken to medical centres “with symptoms indicative of exposure to a chemical agent”.
The group said six people
died under care and rescuers found 42 dead in their homes with similar symptoms.
“The scene was horrifying. So many people were choking, so many people,” White Helmets member Firas Al Doumi told Agence France-Presse. “Most died immediately. The majority were women and children.”
Footage posted online by the White Helmets showed victims with yellowed skin foaming at the mouth. Shellshocked medics held up gas masks to motionless infants
The medical society said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, and a second attack with mixed chemicals including nerve agents hit a nearby residential building.
“We are contacting the UN and the US government and the European governments,” Basel Termanini, its vice president, told Reuters.
The US State Department said that if confirmed, the mass casualties would “demand an immediate response by the international community”.
Britain’s Foreign Office said “an urgent investigation is needed and the international community must respond. We call on the Assad regime and its backers, Russia and Iran, to stop the violence against innocent civilians”.
Russia dismissed the reports. “We decidedly refute this information,” Maj Gen Yuri Yevtushenko, head of the Russian peace and reconciliation centre in Syria, told Interfax news service. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical arms.
Exactly a year ago, the Syrian government dropped missiles loaded with sarin gas on Khan Sheikhoun, a town just south of the rebel-run Idlib province. A total of 80 people were killed. Among the dead were those who had come out of their shelters to aid the wounded. The poison gas killed them instantly. There was, at the time, global outrage. The United States responded to that atrocity by launching airstrikes against a Syrian base. The missile attack was meant to send a message: the use of chemical weapons would not be tolerated.
A year on, however, Bashar Al Assad has once again made a mockery of Washington’s “red line” by launching yet another chemical weapons attack on Eastern Ghouta, already decimated by the regime’s relentless bombardment and siege. On Saturday at least 49 people in Douma were killed as their town was bombarded with bombs loaded with chlorine gas. Rebels leading the insurgency had already left Eastern Ghouta. So what was the aim of the chemical weapons? The answer is clear: for Mr Al Assad to strike terror into the hearts of the civilians and to crush any hopes they might nurture of political reform. Chemical warfare is the weapon of choice for Mr Al Assad. As horrifying details and images emerge of men, women and children choking and foaming at the mouths as they die in the most excruciating of circumstances, Mr Al Assad’s barbarism cannot be allowed to carry on unchecked.
It cannot be coincidence that the attack comes just days after his trio of backers – Iran, Turkey and Russia – met in Ankara, giving him the authority to stamp his brutality on what is left of his opposition. As US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauret said, the regime and its backers must be held accountable and any further attacks prevented immediately.
Mr Al Assad has been emboldened by the world’s apathy to expand his killing spree. The first chemical attack took place in 2012 in Idlib; in the years since, multiple provinces of Syria have been attacked with chemicals. French President Emmanuel Macron threatened to strike Syria if evidence of the use of chemical weapons was proven. But as Syrians bury the men, women and children killed in yet another chemical weapons attack, his promise seems hollow. The funerals of the victims of Mr Al Assad’s latest chemical weapons attack coincide with recent statements by US president Donald Trump that he is considering withdrawing troops from Syria. There could not be a clearer signal to Mr Al Assad to continue the carnage. He has driven his opponents to Idlib and will no doubt turn his attention there once he has obliterated Eastern Ghouta. The rebels there are strongly armed, but they stand no chance against chemical attacks. And it is chemical weapons Mr Al Assad will deploy as he destroys every remnant of opposition. The world, he knows, will look the other way.