Recent reports point to an imminent US military attack against the Syrian political regime, triggered by last week’s chemical weapon strike on the Syrian population.
Information regarding the number of dead is unclear and ranges from reports of 400 to 1,300 victims. It is clear, however, that many women and children are among the casualties.
The chemical attack is said to have been launched by the military forces of Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, against the population and the Syrian rebels, who have been trying to bring down the current regime since 2011.
The United Nations’ investigation team delayed its inspections until Wednesday after it came under fire from unidentified snipers on Monday on its way to check out the site of the suspected chemical attack near Damascus, the capital.
The US, however, seems reluctant to await UN approval.
“We clearly value the UN’s work – we’ve said that from the beginning – when it comes to investigating chemical weapons in Syria. But we’ve reached a point now where we believe too much time has passed for the investigation to be credible and that it’s clear the security situation isn’t safe for the team in Syria,” State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, said on Tuesday.
US Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, also said on Tuesday: “I think it’s pretty clear that chemical weapons were used against people in Syria.”
He added: “I think the intelligence will conclude that it wasn’t the rebels who used it and there’ll probably be pretty good intelligence to showthat the Syria government was responsible, but we’ll allow the time to provide that information.”
Hagel confirmed that US forces are “prepared to fulfill and comply with whatever option the President wishes to take.”
Support seems to be confirmed from the USA’s British allies, after Prime Minister David Cameron revealed on his Twitter social network account that the UK will be presenting a resolution at the UN’s security council in which it will request “authorisation to carry out the adequate measures to protect the civilians.”
Despite all this, President al-Assad denies claims that the government was in charge of the attack and pointed fingers at the Syrian rebels.
“Would any government use chemical weapons in areas where their own forces are stationed? That would go against any kind of logic,” he said, and warned the US that any kind of military attack would end in “failure”.
“Failure awaits the US, like in all others wars the country commenced, such as Vietnam,” al-Assad stated.
Final decisions are expected to be made in the coming days by US authorities.
