Syria chemical weapons attack: US denies missile strike

Apr 9, 2018

Donald Trump issues threat - but denies involvement in overnight raid - after 70 die in a suspected gas attack in Douma

Al Jazeera/Twitter

The UN Security Council is expected to convene an emergency meeting later today in response to a suspected chemical attack by the Syrian government.

At least 70 people, including many women and children, were killed in the rebel-held enclave of Douma in eastern Ghouta on Saturday, according to local rescue workers and medical staff.

The Union of Medical Relief Organizations told the BBC that victims were being treated for symptoms consistent with nerve or mixed nerve and chlorine gas exposure.

Warning: video contains distressing footage

Donald Trump led international condemnation of the atrocity, warning that there will be a “big price to pay” for Bashar al-Assad’s government and its allies in Russia and Iran.

The Syrian government has denied responsibility, while Moscow and Tehran said the “fabricated” reports would be used as an excuse by western nations to take military action against Damascus.

Last night Syria’s state news agency Sana said an airbase near the city of Homs had come under missile attack.

The Pentagon denied any US involvement, but analysts say Trump’s remarks, which come exactly a year after he ordered a missile strike in response to a deadly sarin gas attack, suggets another assault is likely.

Senior White House aides said military action had not been ruled out, according to Reuters. “I wouldn’t take anything off the table,” said Tom Bossert, Trump’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser.

It leaves open the question of whether the US president will opt for a “discrete punishment or a more ambitious and co-ordinated” response, says The Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour.

The advantage of a single retaliatory punishment is simplicity, he says. “That would suit the instincts of a President who only last week said he intended to take all remaining US troops out of Syria.

But there are powerful forces urging a broader sustained programme of action, including France, Israel and the UK, as well as some in the Pentagon,” Wintour adds.