Assad must pay a price over gas attack that killed dozens in Syria, says Boris
SYRIAN tyrant Bashar Assad’s regime must “pay a price” if it unleashed a chemical weapons attack on civilians, Boris Johnson said today.
The Foreign Secretary stressed that all the evidence he had seen pointed strongly at President Assad’s military for carrying out the alleged war crime. He also hinted that there was more proof, yet to be published, that the regime was behind the attack.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the death toll in the massac re in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province had risen to at least 72, including 20 children.
As world outrage grew over yesterday morning’s slaughter, Britain and France called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
Mr Johnson, arriving at an aid-pledging conference for Syria in Brussels, said: “All the evidence I have — and there may be more to come out of this — all the evidence I’ve seen suggests that this was the Assad regime who did it in the full knowledge that they were using illegal weapons in a barbaric attack on their own people.
“I would like to see those culpable pay a price for this.”
He also called for a political process to “get rid” of the Assad regime. US President Donald Trump blamed the Assad regime, saying the attack was “reprehensible and cannot be ignored by the civilised world”.
However, despite the tough rhetoric from political leaders, it remained unclear whether the West is willing to take military action against Assad.
As president, Barack Obama backed away from military strikes despite warning Assad that using chemical weapons — as happened in a Damascus suburb in 2013 — was a red line.
MPs in Britain also refused to back military intervention in the wake of the attack. Turkey today said it had findings which indicate that the latest incident involved chemical weapons. Russia’s defence ministry said the deaths resulted from a rebel chemical weapons depot being hit by Syrian government air strikes.
Overseas Aid Secretary Priti Patel warned that “history will judge” the international community on how it responds to the Syrian crisis.
Speaking in Brussels, she praised the governments of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey for showing “extraordinary ambition” in housing refugees and stressed “the international community must match their efforts”.
She added: “The crisis in Syria is the defining humanitarian crisis of our generation — unquestionably history will judge us if we do not step up.”
The Syrian government “categorically rejected” it carried out the attack, instead blaming rebels and accusing them of making it up to frame the regime.
However, Syrian rebel commander Hasan Haj Ali said: “Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas.
“The various factions of the opposition are not capable of producing these substances.” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the suspected chemical weapons attack is a “moment of truth” that must be investigated.