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by Rim Haddad with Jean-Marc Mojon in Beirut © Agence France-Presse SYRIA (AFP) — The world’s chemical weapons watchdog is set to convene Monday to discuss the suspected toxic gas assault in Syria that prompted an unprecedented wave of Western strikes, as its inspectors probe the attack near Damascus. As the on-the-ground investigation gets under way, the fallout from the US-led response continued to reverberate, with French President Emmanuel Macron claiming to have persuaded President […]
UNITED STATES (AFP) — American objectives in Syria have not altered, the White House said Sunday, reiterating that President Donald Trump wants US troops home “as quickly as possible.” “The US mission has not changed — the President has been clear that he wants US forces to come home as quickly as possible,” press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “We are determined to completely crush ISIS and create the conditions that will […]
UNITED KINGDOM (AFP) — British foreign minister Boris Johnson on Sunday said the Syrian war will inevitably continue after unprecedented Western strikes, which were limited to targeting the country’s alleged chemical weapons facilities. Britain and France on Saturday joined the US-led missile strikes, which came a week after a deadly attack on the town of Douma where civilians were hit with chlorine and sarin according to the Western powers. Despite describing the intervention as […]
SYRIA (AFP) — Inspectors from the OPCW chemical watchdog will begin their investigation Sunday at the site of an alleged chemical attack near Damascus, a senior official said. “The fact-finding team arrived in Damascus on Saturday and is due to go to Douma on Sunday,” Deputy Foreign Minister Ayman Soussan told AFP. A delegation of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague, is tasked with investigating an […]
by Thomas Watkins / with Rim Haddad in Damascus Agence France Presse US President Donald Trump and his British and French allies on Saturday hailed their joint strikes in Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons, warning Damascus that any repetition would be met with renewed firepower. Hours later, the allies signaled their resolve to return to diplomacy, launching a new bid at the United Nations to investigate the chemical weapons […]
by Thomas Watkins © Agence France-Presse UNITED STATES (AFP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has made clear it sees Moscow as complicit in the latest suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria, but Pentagon planners are taking pains to avoid hitting Russian military assets. A clash — intentional or otherwise — between the West and Russia in Syria could have disastrous consequences that could quickly flip the seven-year-old conflict in a new and dangerous direction. […]
BELGIUM (AFP) — The head of NATO expressed his support for Western strikes in Syria on Saturday after bombings targeting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack. “I support the actions taken by the United States, the United Kingdom and France… This will reduce the regime’s ability to further attack the people of Syria with chemical weapons,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement. Explosions were heard in the Syrian […]
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — France warned Friday that Syria’s government had reached a “point of no return” by using chemical weapons and vowed to confront the “intolerable threat” of such attacks to global security. French Ambassador Francois Delattre told a Security Council meeting that world powers must respond to the threat of repeated use of toxic gas as a weapon in Syria’s war. By “deciding once again to use chemical weapons” in the […]
UNITED STATES (AFP) — A quick series of US, French and British air strikes in Syria were designed to send a “clear message” to President Bashar al-Assad and stop his chemical weapons program, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday. The Pentagon chief stressed the strikes were carefully calibrated to provide a strong response to a suspected chemical attack, but avoid pulling the West into Syria’s civil war. “The targets tonight again were specifically […]
by Andrew Beatty / with AFP correspondents in Damascus © Agence France-Presse UNITED STATES (AFP) — The United States, Britain and France carried out a wave of punitive strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime on Saturday in response to alleged chemical weapons attacks that President Donald Trump branded the “crimes of a monster.” As Trump embarked on a White House address to announce the action — taken in defiance of Russia’s threat to respond — […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Thousands of Islamist fighters and their relatives left the Syrian town of Douma they once controlled as the last evacuations from Eastern Ghouta continued Friday, a monitor said. The fighters from the Jaish al-Islam group left overnight and thousands of civilians onboard 85 buses that took them to areas of northern Syria still held by rebels. The evacuations are part of a deal brokered by Damascus’s Russian ally to re-establish regime control […]
by Alice Ritchie Agence France-Presse UNITED KINGDOM (AFP) — Britain’s government weighed the possibility of military action against Syria on Thursday, agreeing the “need to take action” despite polls showing the public remains wary of military intervention. Prime Minister Theresa May held an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss joining mooted strikes by the US and allies, with ministers agreeing “on the need to take action”, her Downing Street office said in a statement. Her office […]
