The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Washington, United States | AFP | The United Nations warned world powers against letting the crisis over an alleged chemical attack against civilians in Syria from “spiraling out of control” after US President Donald Trump said “missiles will be coming.”
As tensions mounted over a face-off with Damascus-ally Russia, opponents of unilateral US action called an emergency closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council for Thursday. Britain also scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting.
With punitive US military action seemingly imminent, Russia scrambled to deflect blame from Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and, according to a monitor group, regime forces evacuated key defense buildings in Damascus.
Trump’s bellicose tweets came in response to a warning from Russia’s ambassador to Beirut, who took to a television network run by the armed group Hezbollah to declare that any US missiles would be shot down “as well as the sources they were fired from.”
If the US action follows the pattern of a previous punitive strike on Syria last year, it will begin with a salvo of cruise missiles fired from US warships in the Mediterranean, as Trump implied when he tweeted they would be “nice, new and ‘smart.'”
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis as well as CIA director Mike Pompeo met at the White House on Wednesday to discuss options, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.
With the UN Security Council failing thus far to find a diplomatic solution, Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned Wednesday that time was running out.
“Today, I called the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the Security Council to reiterate my deep concern about the risks of the current impasse and stressed the need to avoid the situation spiraling out of control,” he said, referring to the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain.
– ‘Gas Killing Animal’ –
Moscow and Washington have so far vetoed each other’s motions to set up an international investigation into chemical weapons use.
Meanwhile, the Russian defense ministry said the Syrian regime flag was flying in Douma — the target of Saturday’s attack — which it said indicated government forces have taken full control over the formerly rebel-held district of Eastern Ghouta.
“The raising of a regime flag over a building in the town of Douma signified control over this town and consequently over Eastern Ghouta as a whole,” Major General Yury Yevtushenko was quoted as saying Thursday by the Interfax news agency.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the remaining rebels in Eastern Ghouta surrendered their heavy weapons to Russian military police and their leader left the enclave for the north.
The Russian army has continued to deny their side’s latest victory came after Assad launched a chemical attack on the last rebel-held pocket of the enclave in the Damascus suburbs, instead accusing the White Helmets civil defense organization of staging the supposed gas assault.
