As he mulls action, Israel blamed for deadly missile strike
The timing of the attack on the T4 air base in Syria’s Homs province, hours after Trump warned there would be a “big price to pay” for Saturday’s alleged chemical weapons strike on a rebel-held enclave outside Damascus, revived fears of a potentially dangerous escalation between world powers involved in the country’s multisided civil war.
Just last week, Trump said he wanted to withdraw some 2,000 American troops from Syria as soon as possible, alarming regional allies and some senior advisers who argue that a U.S. presence is still needed to prevent a resurgence by Islamic State militants and to counter expanding Russian and Iranian influence in the country.
Trump said Monday that he would make a “major decision” over the following 24 to 48 hours on a response to the “barbaric” suspected gas attack Saturday, which opposition activists and first responders said killed nearly 50 people, including children.
“It was an atrocious attack. It was horrible,” the president told reporters ahead of his Cabinet meeting at the White House. “This is about humanity… and it can’t be allowed to happen.”
Trump indicated that his administration was still determining whether Syria, Russia, Iran or all three were to blame. Syria and Russia maintain that accusations of chemical weapons use are a hoax intended to provoke an international response against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Asked by reporters if he would rule out airstrikes, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said, “I don’t rule out anything right now.”
Almost a year ago, Trump ordered a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base for its role in an attack with sarin gas, a banned nerve agent, on a northern town. But Syrian government forces are believed to have used chemical weapons — typically chlorine gas — on numerous other occasions without consequence, according to U.N. officials.
Analysts questioned whether another U.S. military strike would be an effective deterrent.
“I think the strike last year hasn’t really changed the calculus of anyone,” said Tobias Schneider, an independent security analyst who has been tracking the use of chemical weapons in Syria. “I think it was about making ourselves feel better about what had happened. … It didn’t threaten the Assad regime’s survival, which is really the only thing I think can compel a policy change in Damascus.”
The United States and Russia exchanged bitter recriminations Monday at an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to debate a U.S.-drafted proposal to create an independent panel to investigate poison gas use in Syria. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., squarely blamed Russia for the weekend attack in Douma, the last rebel-held town in Syria’s eastern Ghouta region. “Russian hands,” he said, “are all covered in blood.”
Haley scolded Russia for repeatedly refusing to punish Syria and for vetoing Security Council resolutions that singled out Assad for condemnation.
“The day we prayed would never come has come again,” Haley told the council. “Only a monster does this.”
She described photographs of victims — suffocated babies and toddlers in their diapers, lying next to their dead parents.
The Russian ambassador to the U.N., Vassily Nebenzia, gave an impassioned and colorful description of the “boorish” behavior of the U.S. and countries that follow it “blindly,” threatening Moscow with sanctions, “blackmail” and antagonisms that “go beyond the Cold War.”
Nebenzia said the alleged chemical attack in Douma was staged by anti-Assad “terrorists” and that reports on the assault and photographs of the victims were “fake news.”
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency initially suggested that the United States was to blame for Monday’s missile strike on the air base in Homs but later pointed the finger at Israel, after the Pentagon said it was not involved.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said two Israeli F-15 warplanes targeted the T4 base from Lebanese air space. Syria’s air defenses shot down five of the eight guided missiles fired by the aircraft, according to a statement cited by Russian news agencies.
Lebanon’s military issued a statement saying Israeli planes had flown in from over the Mediterranean.
An Israeli army spokesman declined to comment.
Israel has grown increasingly alarmed about the presence of Iranian military advisers and allied militias in southern Syria.
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