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2018-04-13 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
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US said planning to hit 8 sites in Syria after confirming chemical attack
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[Israel.Times] Airfields, weapons factory among reported targets; Trump says decision on response to gas attack to come 'fairly soon'
The White House is considering eight potential Syrian targets in retaliation for a chemical weapons assault, a US official told CNBC Thursday. The targets included two airfields and a chemical weapons facility, according to the source, who requested anonymity.
The report came hours after US President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
, who this week threatened to attack Syria, told news hounds that a decision on the matter would be made "fairly soon." That assertion from Trump, who huddled with top national security advisers Thursday, came a day after he tweeted that a US retaliatory attack could be "very soon or not so soon at all!"
Moscow, for its part, stonewalled diplomatic efforts at the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
"It’s too bad that the world puts us in a position like that," said Trump, as Defense Secretary James Mattis headed to the West Wing to present options for a retaliatory strike.
"We’re having a number of meetings today, we’ll see what happens, we’re obviously looking at that very closely," he told politicians and governors in the Cabinet Room. "Now we have to make some further decisions, so they will be made fairly soon."
NBC News cited two US officials as asserting that Washington has blood and urine samples from last Saturday’s attack that tested positive for both chlorine and an unspecified nerve agent.
Bashir al-Assad’s regime has been known to employ a mix of chlorine and gases against its own citizens, according to US officials.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday that the use of chemical weapons in Syria is "simply inexcusable."
"Some things are simply inexcusable, beyond the pale, and in the worst interest of not just the chemical weapons convention but of civilization itself," Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee.
He said a chemical attack had likely occurred and hoped inspectors would be in place within a week to prove it.
"I believe there was a chemical attack and we are looking for the actual evidence," Mattis said.
Military buildup
Since Saturday, when images of ashen toddlers struggling for breath emerged from Douma ‐ the main city in the Eastern Ghouta enclave near Damascus that has been a crucible of revolt against Assad’s regime ‐ there has been a sustained military buildup in the eastern Mediterranean.
A French frigate, UK Royal Navy submarines laden with cruise missiles, and the USS Donald Cook, an American destroyer equipped with Tomahawk land attack missiles have all moved into range of Syria’s sun-bleached coast.
The Cook ‐ named after a Marine Colonel who suffered deprivation and starvation as a Vietnam prisoner of war ‐ has past experience tangling with the Russian military, having been deployed to the Black Sea during the recent crisis in Crimea.
Half a world away in New York, Russia’s UN ambassador warned that the priority in Syria was to avert US-led strikes that could lead to a dangerous confrontation between the world’s two preeminent nuclear powers.
US officials have refused to rule out direct military engagement with Russia, with the White House saying "all options are on the table."
But a special hotline for the US and Russian militaries to communicate about operations in Syria is active and being used by both sides, Moscow said Thursday.
Rebels give up Ghouta
On the ground in Syria, rebels in Eastern Ghouta surrendered their heavy weapons and their leader left the enclave, signalling the end of one of the bloodiest assaults of the seven-year war and a major win for the Assad regime.
A top leader of Jaish al-Islam
 ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...
, a group that controlled Douma for years, told AFP it was Saturday’s attack that forced them to accept a Russian-brokered deal and evacuate.
The UN Security Council, tasked with maintaining international peace and security, has been riven, with Moscow virulently denying the Douma attack took place, or postulating that it was carried out by rebels.
The council has already failed to agree on a response to the attack in three votes and has been deadlocked throughout the Syrian civil war.
But across Western capitals opposition to military action also grew. US politicians questioned whether Trump has the legal authority to order strikes without Congressional approval and opposition parties voiced concern.
National security experts worried about whether strikes would actually serve to deter Assad. In April last year Trump ordered Tomahawk strikes on the Shayrat Airbase in response to a similar chemical weapons attack on rebel-held Khan Sheikhun. But the pinpoint strike did not deter Assad, and US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, have since investigated as many as 10 suspected chemical attacks.
The same officials say Syria has continued to produce or procure chlorine, which also has industrial and agricultural uses.
Syria, which denies carrying out the latest attack, said it had invited the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which has blamed the regime for previous such incidents, to visit Douma. The OPCW, which works to rid the world of chemical arms stockpiles, said its experts were on their way to Syria and will start their work on Saturday. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2018-04-13 00:00||
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File under: Govt of Syria
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Posted by g(r)omgoru 2018-04-13 02:28||
2018-04-13 02:28||
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