As condemnation poured in, Syria’s government and opposition negotiators announced rebels had agreed to evacuate Douma, the only remaining part of their one-time stronghold Eastern Ghouta.
Trump’s threat came exactly a year and a day after the US fired cruise missiles at a Syrian air base in retaliation for a deadly sarin gas attack in 2017.
“Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria,” Trump wrote on Twitter yesterday, lashing out at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, a key ally of the regime.
“President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Assad. Big price to pay,” he said.
Asked whether the US could again respond with a missile strike, White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert told ABC television: “I wouldn’t take anything off the table.”
Damascus and its allies have denounced the accusations, with the Syrian regime brushing them off as an “unconvincing broken record”.Russia’s foreign ministry called the latest reports a provocation and warned against them being used to justify military action.
“A military intervention under far-fetched and fabricated pretexts in Syria, where there are Russian soldiers at the request of the legitimate Syrian government, is absolutely unacceptable and could have the most dire consequences,” it said. France, which has repeatedly said evidence of chemical use in Syria could prompt military action, called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting today.
Syria’s White Helmets, who act as first responders in rebel-held areas of Syria, said “poisonous chlorine gas” had been used late Saturday.
In a joint statement with the Syrian American Medical Society, the White Helmets said more than 500 cases were brought to medical centres “with symptoms indicative of exposure to a chemical agent”. It said six died while being treated, and rescuers found 42 more people dead in their homes with similar conditions.
Footage posted online by the White Helmets, which it was not possible to verify, showed victims with yellowed skin crumpled on the ground and foaming at the mouth.
“The scene was horrifying. So many people were choking, so many people,” White Helmets member Firas al-Doumi said from inside Douma.
A member of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) inside the town said volunteers were still trying their best despite the organisation’s Douma branch being out of operation. “This morning, we drove around and found bodies lying in the streets.We took four trips to bring the corpses back, each with three or five dead,” the SARC member said.
He said the hospital was teeming with dead and wounded, as well as civilians taking cover from the previous night’s bombardment. “Imagine, people were cooking for their kids next to corpses. There’s nowhere to bury the dead now.”
The reports prompted international anger, with UN chief Antonio Guterres saying any confirmed use of chemical weapons would be “abhorrent”. Pope Francis described the allegations as “terrible news”, adding that “nothing, nothing can justify the use of such devices of extermination against defenceless people and populations.”
The European Union said “the evidence points towards yet another chemical attack by the regime”, while opposition ally Turkey stated it had a “strong suspicion” Assad was to blame.
But key backer Iran came to Assad’s defence, saying the allegations were a Western conspiracy and echoing Russia’s warning against foreign military action. Douma is the last remaining opposition-held town in Ghouta, the former rebel bastion outside Damascus that has now been ravaged by a seven-week regime assault.
Since February 18, Syrian and Russian forces have waged a fierce military onslaught and negotiated two withdrawals to retake control of 95% of Ghouta.Agreements, brokered by Moscow last month, saw more than 46,000 rebels and civilians bussed to the opposition-held northwest.
It appeared Douma would follow suit, with a preliminary deal that saw hundreds of civilians and rebels from Jaish al-Islam quit the town last week.The rebels had been hoping to land a deal that would let them stay in Douma, but Syria’s government insisted they leave.
Turkey condemns use of chemical weapons
Turkey condemned the use of chemical weapons in Douma, a rebel-held town in Syria’s eastern Ghouta, the foreign ministry said in a statement yesterday. A chemical attack on a rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta has killed dozens of people, medical services reported, and Washington said the reports — if confirmed — would demand an immediate international response.
“We strongly condemn the attack, which there is strong suspicion was carried out by the regime, whose record on use of chemical weapons is known by the international community,” the ministry said. Turkey, which has been working with allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a political resolution to the crisis in Syria, called for international action against the attacks in Douma.“The Syrian regime must give account for the attacks in various regions of the country at different times,” a spokesman for President Tayyip Erdogan said.
“The entire international community, primarily countries that have an influence on the Syrian regime, has a responsibility to take the necessary steps in order to prevent similar war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Ibrahim Kalin said in a statement.
