President Donald Trump of the United States said, on Wednesday, that it is now his responsibility to resolve the humanitarian and political crisis in Syria as he opened the door to military action in the country, following Tuesday’s chemical “sarin gas” attack in Khan Sheikhoun, in the rebel-held central province of Idlib, Syria.
Western countries, including the US, blamed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s armed forces for the worst chemical attack in the country for more than four years, which killed 72 people, including 20 children and 17 women.
Trump upped the ante in a Rose Garden press conference after having said earlier in the day that the the chemical weapons attack is a “terrible affront to humanity.”
“My attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much,” Trump declared, suggesting with the statement that he may be reconsidering his directive to US diplomats to take their focus off removing Bashar al-Assad from power.
The “horrible, horrible” sarin gas attack that killed small children and “beautiful babies” had a major impact on the president, who declared that the attack “crossed a lot of lines.”
“When you kill innocent children, innocent babies with a chemical gas that was so lethal…that crosses many, many lines, beyond the red line,” Trump said, making reference to Barack Obama’s infamous 2012 threat to Assad.
The White House has not said how it plans to respond to the Tuesday assault it said it was certain that Syria’s dictator carried out.
Trump told a reporter asking about action in the Oval, “You’ll see”.
Also, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, warned, on Wednesday, that America could take unilateral action if the UN fails to respond to the suspected chemical attack in Syria.
“When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action,” Haley said.
The warning came during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council called by France and Britain after the attack.
Haley lashed out at Russia for failing to rein in its ally Syria, standing in the council chamber to hold up photographs of victims – one showing a young child lying lifeless, a mask covering his face.
“How many more children have to die before Russia cares?” she asked.
“If Russia has the influence in Syria that it claims to have, we need to see them use it,” she said. “We need to see them put an end to these horrific acts.”
Pope Francis called the suspected chemical weapons attack “an unacceptable massacre”.
The pope said that he was “watching with horror at the latest events in Syria”, and said he “strongly deplored the unacceptable massacre”.
French President Francois Hollande accused Assad of responsibility for the “massacre”.
“Those who support this regime can once again reflect on the enormity of their political, strategic and moral responsibility,” he said.
EU Council president Donald Tusk said the attack is “another reminder of the brutality” of Syria’s regime and the perpetrators must be held accountable.
Tusk said the Syrian regime bears “the primary responsibility for the atrocities,” but also blamed supporters of Assad’s government who share the “moral and political responsibility.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel branded the deadly suspected chemical attack a “war crime” and demanded Russia and Iran put pressure on President Assad.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri says people should not be shocked by the chemical attack because the international community is allowing such acts to happen.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that the use of chemical weapons is “illegal and abhorrent”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the world must act to rid Syria of chemical weapons.
Following news of the attack, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called it a “war crime”, saying that it “bears all hallmarks of an attack by the regime which has repeatedly used chemical weapons”.
Mr Johnson told reporters: “I’ve seen absolutely nothing to suggest, or rather to lead us to think, that it’s anything but the regime.”
Mr Johnson added: “You cannot go on with a regime that’s willing to use illegal weapons against its own people, a regime that’s killed hundreds of thousands of its own people.
“What’s needed now is a political process to get rid of that regime and give the people of Syria a chance.”
Mr Johnson said he would like to see “those culpable pay a price”, adding: “I think what it confirms to everybody is that this is a barbaric regime that has made it impossible for us to imagine them continuing to be in authority over the people of Syria after this conflict is over.
Russia denied, on Wednesday, that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was to blame for a poison gas attack and said it would continue to back him, setting the Kremlin on course for its biggest diplomatic collision yet with Donald Trump’s White House.
Washington said it believed the deaths were caused by sarin nerve gas dropped by Syrian aircraft. But Moscow offered an alternative explanation that would shield Assad: that the poison gas belonged to rebels and had leaked from an insurgent weapons depot hit by Syrian bombs.
The United States, Britain and France have proposed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would pin the blame on Damascus. But the Russian Foreign Ministry called the resolution “unacceptable” and said it was based on “fake information”.
Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia would take its case blaming the rebels for the poisoning to the United Nations.
“Russia and its armed forces will continue their operations to support the anti-terrorist operations of Syria’s armed forces to free the country,” Peskov told reporters.
The new incident means Trump is faced with same dilemma that faced his predecessor: whether to openly challenge Moscow and risk deep involvement in a Middle East war by seeking to punish Assad for using banned weapons, or compromise and accept the Syrian leader remaining in power at the risk of looking weak.
Meanwhile, faces of the innocent victims of a chemical gas attack have been revealed after a father asked for photos of his twin children who died in the massacre to be shared.
Devastated Abdul Hamid Youssef was pictured cradling the bodies of his dead toddler-aged twins, Ahmed and Aiya, after they were killed during the chemical “sarin gas” attack.
Youssef, who lost 20 members of his family including his wife in Tuesday’s attack, also shared images of his children, a boy and a girl, playing together before they were killed in the war-ravaged town.
It has been reported he is now very sick himself in hospital, suffering from chemical exposure.
Renewed air strikes hit Khan Sheikhoun, on Wednesday, as cities around Syria were affected by raids.
World Leaders Condemn Syria’s Chemical Attack …. US Threatens Military Action Against Assad
ByEditor
Apr 6, 2017
Abdul Hamid Youssef cradling the bodies of his dead toddler-aged twins, Ahmed and Aiya.