Tag Archives: Chemical Weapons

Warplanes drop incendiary bombs in Syria’s Idlib, Hama

People inspect the damage at a site hit by airstrikes in the rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian or Russian warplanes dropped incendiary bombs on areas of Idlib and Hama provinces just days after a deadly gas attack in the region, activists and a monitoring group reported on Monday.

Moscow and the Syrian army were not immediately available for comment.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian jets had used an incendiary substance called thermite in bombs they dropped over the towns of Saraqeb in Idlib and al-Latamenah in Hama, further south, on Saturday and Sunday.

A rescue worker in Saraqeb said warplanes had dropped phosphorus bombs there, but he had not heard of the use of thermite. He said use of phosphorus was not a new development.

“It’s normal, these are often used,” said Laith Abdullah of the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, a rescue group working in rebel-held areas.

Videos posted on social media purportedly from Saraqeb on Sunday showed flaming materials hitting the ground and spreading large fires.

The Observatory said thermite had first been used in the Syrian conflict in June 2016 by the Syrian government.

The bombings came after the United States launched cruise missiles at an air base in western Syria on Friday. The missile strike was a response to what Washington said was a gas attack by Syrian warplanes in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib that killed scores.

Syria denies using chemical substances and denies it carried out the attack.

The Observatory reported Syrian warplanes took off from the same air base less than a day after the U.S. attack and carried out air strikes on rebel-held areas.

(Reporting by John Davison, editing by Larry King)

U.S. officials say Russian inaction enabled Syria chemical attack

A civil defence member breathes through an oxygen mask, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017.

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Trump administration officials on Sunday blamed Russian inaction for enabling a deadly poison gas attack against Syrian civilians last week as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson prepared to explain to Moscow a U.S. retaliatory missile strike.

Tillerson said Syria was able to execute the attack, which killed scores of people, because Moscow had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons in Syria.

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Syria’s “sponsors,” Russia and Iran, were enabling President Bashar al-Assad’s “campaign of mass murder against his own civilians.”

But Tillerson, who is expected to visit Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian officials, said on ABC’s ‘This Week’ program there was “no change” to the U.S. military posture toward Syria.

“I think the real failure here has been Russia’s failure to live up to its commitments under the chemical weapons agreements that were entered into in 2013,” Tillerson said.

“The failure related to the recent strike and the recent terrible chemical weapons attack in large measure is a failure on Russia’s part to achieve its commitment to the international community,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base after he blamed Assad for the chemical attack, which killed at least 70 people, many of them children, in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the attack.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” McMaster said the United States would take further action in Syria if necessary.

“We’re prepared to do more. In fact, we were prepared to do more two days ago,” McMaster said. “The president will make whatever decision he thinks is in the best interests of the American people.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani said in a phone call that aggressive U.S. actions against Syria were not permissible and violated international law, the Kremlin said.

McMaster said Russian leaders were supporting “a murderous regime” and their actions would dictate the future of U.S.-Russian relations.

“Do they want it to be a relationship of competition and potential conflict,” McMaster said. “Or do they want it to be a relationship in which we can find areas of cooperation that are in our mutual interest?”

Tillerson stopped short of accusing Russia of direct involvement in planning or carrying out the attack, saying he had not seen “any hard evidence” to suggest Moscow was an accomplice to Assad.

But he said the United States expected Russia to take a tougher stance by rethinking its alliance with Assad because “every time one of these horrific attacks occurs, it draws Russia closer into some level of responsibility.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and David Morgan; Editing by James Dalgleish)

U.S. strikes not seen as gamechanger by Arab political analyists in complex Syrian conflict

U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Porter conducts strike operations against Syria while in the Mediterranean Sea.

By Katie Paul and Asma Alsharif

RIYADH/CAIRO (Reuters) – U.S. strikes on Syria in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack marked a sharp escalation in the country’s civil war but were not viewed in the Arab world as a gamechanger in a six-year conflict that has divided the region.

Two U.S. warships fired cruise missiles at a Syrian air base controlled by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces early on Friday in response to the poison gas attack which killed at least 70 people in a rebel-held area.

U.S. officials said the strike was a “one-off” intended to deter future chemical weapons attacks, and not part of a wider expansion of the U.S. role in the war.

The reactions were predictable from Damascus’ ally Iran and foe Saudi Arabia, two regional powers waging proxy wars in Syria and other Middle Eastern countries.

Saudi Arabia hailed the strike as a “courageous decision” by President Donald Trump, and Saudi ally the UAE, a member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamist militants in Syria, also expressed its support.

Iran denounced the “unilateral strikes”.

“Such measures will strengthen terrorists in Syria … and will complicate the situation in Syria and the region,” the Students News Agency ISNA quoted foreign ministry spokesman Bahrem Qasemi as saying.

It was the toughest direct U.S. action yet in Syria, but Arab political analysts were skeptical it would make much difference in the direction of the conflict in Syria or in efforts to find a political solution.

It did, however, indicate how far Trump was willing to go, possibly with his domestic audience in mind, even if it risked contradicting previous positions as well as confrontation with Assad’s other main military backer, Russia.

Trump had repeatedly said he wanted better relations with Moscow, including to cooperate with Russia to fight Islamic State, and has so far focused his Syria policy almost exclusively on that effort.

But he also criticized his predecessor Barack Obama for setting a “red line” threatening force against Assad if he used chemical weapons, only to pull back from ordering air strikes in 2013 when Assad agreed to give up his chemical arsenal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned the missile strikes as an illegal move that would hurt U.S.-Russia ties.

“This kind of strike will not bring down the Syrian regime,” said Abdulaziz al-Sager, a Saudi academic and chairman of the Jeddah-based Gulf Research Center.

“But it shows a new attitude from the U.S. administration in the region which is to take initiatives individually if needed.”

Over the past few months, many Western countries have been backing away from long-standing demands that Assad leave power, accepting that rebels no longer had the power to remove him by force. After the chemical weapons attack on Tuesday, however, several countries said Assad must go.

Among the countries strongly backing the strikes and calling for Assad to be removed from power was Turkey. Long one of Assad’s principal foes, Turkey had in recent months reached a rapprochement with Russia and had been co-sponsoring Syrian peace talks with Moscow.

Mustapha Kamel Al-Sayyid, professor of political science at Cairo University, doubted that the attacks would undermine these kinds of efforts.

“I don’t consider this a change in the United States policy toward Syria but rather a limited strike, which Trump probably aimed to use in order to strengthen his position inside the United States,” he said.

Iraq has been put in the difficult position of balancing its interests between its two key allies, the United States and Iran. Officials have so far maintained silence on the strikes.

“The Iraqi side will not rush into a reaction that could backfire,” said Baghdad-based analyst Fadhel Abu Ragheef.

On the streets of the Iraqi capital, Trump’s actions were seen as just another sign that the United States wants to dominate the Middle East.

“He (Trump) wants to isolate Iran and build American military bases in Iraq,” said Qassim, a shopkeeper, giving only his first name.

(Additional reporting by Sami Aboudi and Aziz El Yaakoubi in Dubai, Maher Chmaytelli in Erbil, Maher Nazeh in Baghdad, Daren Butler and Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

In abrupt shift on Syria, Trump turns to military advisers

U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) conducts strike operations while in the Mediterranean Sea which U.S. Defense Department said was a part of cruise missile strike against Syria on April 7, 2017. Ford Williams/Courtesy U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS

By John Walcott and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON/PALM BEACH (Reuters) – Hours after a poison gas attack in Syria killed dozens of civilians on Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s intelligence advisers provided evidence Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad was behind the atrocity, officials said.

Trump, who had long said the top U.S. priority in Syria should be to fight Islamic State, immediately ordered a list of options to punish Assad, according to senior officials who took part in the flurry of closed-door meetings that played out over two days.

Confronting his first foreign policy crisis, Trump relied on seasoned military experts rather than the political operatives who had dominated policy in the first weeks of his presidency and showed a willingness to move quickly, officials involved in the deliberations said.

On Thursday afternoon, Trump ordered the launch of a barrage of cruise missiles against the Shayrat air field north of Damascus, which the Pentagon says was used to store the chemical weapons used in the attack.

“I think it does demonstrate that President Trump is willing to act when governments and actors cross the line … It is clear that President Trump made that statement to the world,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters.

Senior administration officials said they met with Trump as early as Tuesday evening and presented options including sanctions, diplomatic pressure and a military plan to strike Syria drawn up well before he took office.

“He had a lot of questions and said he wanted to think about it but he also had some points he wanted to make. He wanted the options refined,” one official said.

On Wednesday morning, Trump’s military advisers said they knew which Syrian air base was used to launch the chemical attack and that they had tracked the Sukhoi-22 jet that carried it out.

Trump told them to focus on the military plans.

“It was a matter of dusting those off and adapting them for the current target set and timing,” said another official.

‘YOU’LL SEE’

That same afternoon, Trump appeared in the White House Rose Garden and said the “unspeakable” attack against “even beautiful little babies” had changed his attitude toward Assad.

Asked then whether he was formulating a new policy on Syria, Trump replied: “You’ll see.”

By late afternoon on Thursday, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff met at the Pentagon to finalize the plan for the military strikes as Trump headed to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for a summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

At another meeting there, Trump signed off on the missile attacks and went to dinner with Xi.

Two U.S. warships – the USS Ross and the USS Porter – fired 59 cruise missiles from the eastern Mediterranean Sea at the targeted air base at around 8:40 p.m. ET (00:40 GMT), just as the two presidents were finishing their meals.

Throughout the three days of meetings, Trump’s key military advisers were national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, officials said.

In a White House marked by palace intrigue, McMaster has jostled for influence with Stephen Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, who lost his seat on the National Security Council on Wednesday just as the military preparations were developing.

Tillerson’s State Department told allies on Thursday that a strike against Syria was imminent, without providing details, one official said.

But the move angered Russia, a major ally of Assad, and appeared to diminish chances of closer cooperation with Moscow that Trump has said is possible, especially in fighting the Islamic State militant group.

Tillerson played down suggestions that Trump was dropping his “America First” approach to foreign policy. And one of the other officials involved in the planning said the cruise missile launch was a “one-off” strike rather than the start of an escalating campaign.

(Reporting by John Walcott, Steve Holland and Phil Stewart; Writing by Yara Bayoumy and Kieran Murray; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Ralph Boulton)

Warplane hits Syrian town where gas attack killed scores: witness, Observatory

Men salvage a motorbike amid the damage from inside a medical point at a site hit by airstrikes on Tuesday, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A warplane on Friday bombed the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, where a chemical attack killed scores of people this week and prompted U.S. missile strikes, a witness in the rebel-held area and a war monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that monitors the war, said a Syrian government or Russian warplane hit Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib province before noon.

The Syrian army and the Russian defense ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

The witness, an activist working with an air raid warning service in opposition areas, said the jet struck at around 11 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) at the northern edge of the town, causing damage but no known casualties.

The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles on Friday at an airfield from which it said the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack was launched that killed at least 70 people on Tuesday.

Washington blamed the gas attack on Syrian government forces. The Syrian government strongly denies responsibility and says it does not use chemical weapons.

The Observatory and the witness said earlier this week that the aircraft which they accused of carrying out the suspected gas attack had flown out of the Shayrat air base, the one attacked by U.S. missiles on Friday.

The Syrian army said the missile attack on its airbase killed six people and caused extensive damage, describing it as a “blatant aggression”.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis and Tom Perry; editing by Andrew Roche)

Oil prices jump 2 percent after U.S. launches missile strike in Syria

Crude oil storage tanks are seen from above at the Cushing oil hub, appearing to run out of space to contain a historic supply glut that hammered prices, in Cushing, Oklahoma,

By Henning Gloystein

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices surged more than 2 percent on Friday after the United States launched dozens of cruise missiles at an airbase in Syria.

U.S President Donald Trump said he had ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airfield from which a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched earlier this week, declaring he acted in America’s “national security interest” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

After tepid trading before the news, Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil, jumped to $56.08 per barrel before easing to be up 1.6 percent at $55.75 per barrel at 0310 GMT.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures also climbed by over 2 percent, to a high of $52.94 a barrel before receding to be up 1.8 percent at $52.61.

Both benchmarks hit their highest levels since early March.

The strikes rattled global markets. While oil prices surged as traders priced in what has in the past been called a Middle East risk premium, and safe-haven products like gold jumped, stock markets and the U.S. dollar slumped.

“The U.S cruise missile strikes have seen crude oil jump over two percent in a straight line,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at futures brokerage OANDA in Singapore.

Halley said the strikes had potentially big implications for oil markets.

“What will be the response of Iran and Russia, two of the world’s largest oil producers and staunch allies of the Assad regime?… We will have to wait for these answers as the day moves on,” he said.

U.S. officials said the military had fired 59 cruise missiles against a Syrian airbase controlled by Assad’s forces, in response to a poison gas attack on Tuesday in a rebel-held area.

Officials said the United States had informed Russia ahead of the strikes. The strikes did not target sections of the Syrian base where Russian forces were believed to be present.

(Reporting by Henning Gloystein; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Richard Pullin)

Britain, France renew call for Assad to go after Syria chemical attack

Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and officials observe a minute of silence in respect for the victims of suspected Syrian government chemical attack during an international conference on the future of Syria and the region, in Brussels, Belgium, April 5, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

By Gabriela Baczynska and Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Britain and France on Wednesday renewed their call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to go, after a suspected chemical weapons attack by Damascus killed scores of people in a rebel-held area.

Foreign ministers Boris Johnson of Britain and Jean-Marc Ayrault of France spoke during an international conference on Syria, which the European Union convened in Brussels in a bid to shore up stalled peace talks between Assad and his rivals.

“This is a barbaric regime that has made it impossible for us to imagine them continuing to be an authority over the people of Syria after this conflict is over,” Johnson said.

Ayrault said the attack was a test for the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The future of Assad, who is backed militarily and politically by Russia and Iran, has been the main point of contention blocking progress in talks. The war has raged for more than six years, killing 320,000 people, displacing millions and leaving civilians facing dire humanitarian conditions.

“The need for humanitarian aid and the protection of Syrian civilians has never been greater. The humanitarian appeal for a single crisis has never been higher,” United Nations’ Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.

The U.N. has called for $8 billion this year to deal with the crisis and the Brussels gathering was due to come up with fresh pledges of aid.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Hours before the U.N. Security Council meets over a resolution proposed by Washington, London and Paris on the attack, Guterres said: “We have been asking for accountability on the crimes that have been committed and I am confident the Security Council will live up to its responsibilities.”

The three countries blamed Assad for the attack. Russia said it believed the toxic gas had leaked from a rebel chemical weapons depot struck by Syrian bombs, setting the stage for a diplomatic collision at the Security Council.

In condemning Assad, Trump did not say how he would respond. The attack came a week after Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.N. envoy Nikki Haley said their focus was on defeating Islamic State in Syria rather than pushing Assad out.

“Under Obama, we agreed that Assad had to go, but now it is unclear where the Trump position lies,” said a senior EU diplomat.

On the aid front, Germany pledged 1.2 billion euros ($1.28 billion) for 2017 on top of its previous commitments. London offered an additional one billion pounds ($1.25 billion).

The EU and its members have so far mobilized about 9.5 billion euros in Syria emergency humanitarian aid, Brussels says.

The bloc says it will withhold development aid and not pay for any reconstruction if Damascus and its backers wipe out Syria’s opposition and moderate rebels, regaining full control of the country but denying its ethnic and religious groups political representation.

“But behind this line, there are divisions in the EU on Assad. Some are hawkish, some others want to think whether we could work with him somehow,” another senior EU diplomat said.

“The EU’s internal splits only add up to those among the big players in this war. There is a sense of despair but the international community just cannot agree on how to fix Syria.”

(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, John Irish in Paris, Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Conference on Syria overshadowed by chemical attack

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini takes part in a joint news conference during an international conference on the future of Syria and the region, in Brussels, Belgium, April 5, 2017. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Robin Emmott and Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union’s aid chief called for more humanitarian access in Syria on Tuesday at an international conference meant to support the country’s ailing peace prospects, but one that quickly got overshadowed by a chemical attack inside Syria.

As Christos Stylianides spoke at the gathering in Brussels, a suspected gas attack hit the rebel-held Idlib province, killing at least 58 people, including children.

The United Nations’ Syria envoy said the ‘horrific’ attack came from the air and that the U.N. Security Council would meet to demand accountability.

The EU’s top diplomat Federica Mogherini said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad held “primary responsibility”.

“Chemical weapons are the worst of war crimes,” she said.

The Brussels conference comes as Syria’s civil war enters its seventh year, raging on in large part due to the inability of regional and global powers to agree on how to end it.

“Humanitarian access is at a new low due to continued deliberate obstruction by all parties to the conflict,” Stylianides told the two-day conference.

“You remember east Aleppo, where no aid could enter for months despite our collective calls,” he said, referring to the government siege of rebel-held areas last year. “More Aleppos are everywhere in Syria.”

The United Nations has appealed for $8 billion this year to deal with one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with millions of people displaced inside Syria and in neighboring countries.

Qatar and Kuwait joined the EU, Norway and the United Nations to organize the latest international effort following conferences in Berlin, London and Helsinki to raise funds.

The European Union has already pledged 1.2 billion euros ($1.28 billion) for 2017. Other governments will come under pressure to make good on promises made in February 2016 at the London conference, which raised $11 billion over four years.

EU LACKS HARD LEVERAGE

Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Nancy Wilson, the head of Relief International, said problems getting access and providing supplies were chief obstacles on the ground.

“You can’t run a health clinic if you don’t have clean water and medical supplies,” she said. “Some kind of political solution that would cease the fighting would be the biggest challenge.”

The EU called the conference to show support for the peace process by bringing together prime ministers, foreign ministers and ambassadors from some 70 countries.

But the bloc’s role in international attempts at bringing the war to an end has been largely marginal, as highlighted again by the absence in Brussels of top-level officials from Russia, Turkey and the United States.

Five million Syrians have fled into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and the European Union to escape the conflict among rebels, Islamist militants, government troops and foreign backers.

The future of Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, remains the key point of contention, blocking political talks.

The EU says it will not pay for any post-war reconstruction unless there is a “credible political transition” that would give the opposition, moderate rebels and the various ethnic and religious groups a say in Syria.

“We caution against paying for Assad’s destruction without a political end to the war,” said European lawmaker Mariejte Schaake of the Netherlands.

The initial U.S. and Russian backing for the U.N.-led process has waned as Moscow now sponsors separate talks with regional powers Iran and Turkey.

Washington is now also at odds with Europe – while they used to agree that Assad must go, President Donald Trump has made fighting terrorism his top priority instead.

(Additional reporting by Farah Salhi; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

Russia denies Assad to blame for chemical attack, on course for collision with Trump

A civil defence member breathes through an oxygen mask, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

By Maria Tsvetkova and Tom Perry

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Russia denied on Wednesday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was to blame for a poison gas attack and said it would continue to back him, setting the Kremlin on course for its biggest diplomatic collision yet with Donald Trump’s White House.

Western countries, including the United States, blamed Assad’s armed forces for a chemical attack which choked scores of people to death in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in a rebel-held area of northern Syria on Tuesday.

Washington said it believed the deaths were caused by sarin nerve gas dropped by Syrian aircraft. But Moscow offered an alternative explanation that would shield Assad: that the poison gas belonged to rebels and had leaked from an insurgent weapons depot hit by Syrian bombs.

The United States, Britain and France have proposed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would pin the blame on Damascus. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would argue its case blaming the rebels at the United Nations.

“Russia and its armed forces will continue their operations to support the anti-terrorist operations of Syria’s armed forces to free the country,” Peskov told reporters.

Video uploaded to social media showed civilians sprawled on the ground, some in convulsions, others lifeless. Rescue workers hose down the limp bodies of small children, trying to wash away chemicals. People wail and pound on the chests of victims.

The World Health Organization said the symptoms were consistent with exposure to a nerve agent.

Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, called the Russian statement blaming the rebels a “lie” and said rebels did not have the capability to produce nerve gas.

“Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas,” he told Reuters from northwestern Syria. “Likewise, all the civilians in the area know that there are no military positions there, or places for the manufacture (of weapons).”

The incident is the first time Washington has accused Assad of using sarin since 2013, when hundreds of people died in an attack on a Damascus suburb. At that time, Washington said Assad had crossed a “red line” set by then-President Barack Obama.

Obama threatened an air campaign to topple Assad but called it off at the last minute after the Syrian leader agreed to give up his chemical arsenal under a deal brokered by Moscow, a decision which Trump has long said proved Obama’s weakness.

The new incident means Trump is faced with same dilemma that faced his predecessor: whether to openly challenge Moscow and risk deep involvement in a Middle East war by seeking to punish Assad for using banned weapons, or compromise and accept the Syrian leader remaining in power at the risk of looking weak.

Trump described Tuesday’s incident as “heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime”, but also faulted Obama for having failed to enforce the red line four years ago. Obama’s spokesman declined to comment.

The draft U.N. Security Council statement drawn up by Washington, London and Paris condemned the attack and demanded an investigation. Russia has the power to veto it, which it has done to block all previous resolutions that would harm Assad, most recently in February.

France’s foreign minister said the chemical attack showed Assad was testing whether the new U.S. administration would stand by Obama-era demands that he be removed from power.

“It’s a test. That’s why France repeats the messages, notably to the Americans, to clarify their position,” Jean-Marc Ayrault told RTL radio. “I told them that we need clarity. What’s your position?”

“BARBARIC REGIME”

Trump’s response to a diplomatic confrontation with Moscow will be closely watched at home because of accusations by his political opponents that he is too supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He has previously said the United States and Russia should work more closely in Syria to fight against Islamic State.

U.S. intelligence agencies say Russia intervened in the U.S. presidential election last year through computer hacking to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. The FBI and two congressional committees are investigating whether figures from the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow, which the White House denies.

The chemical attack in Idlib province, one of the last major strongholds of rebels that have fought since 2011 to topple Assad, complicates diplomatic efforts to end a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven half of Syrians from their homes.

Over the past several months Western countries, including the United States, had been quietly dropping their demands that Assad leave power in any deal to end the war, accepting that the rebels no longer had the capability to topple him by force.

The use of banned chemical weapons would make it harder for the international community to sign off on any peace deal that does not remove him.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who two months ago shifted his country’s policy by saying Assad could be allowed to run for re-election, said on Wednesday that he must go.

“This is a barbaric regime that has made it impossible for us to imagine them continuing to be an authority over the people of Syria after this conflict is over.”

(Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Twelve treated for chemical weapons agents in Mosul since March 1: U.N.

Iraqi special forces soldiers walk on a street during a battle with Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq March 3, 2017 REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Twelve people, including women and children, are being treated for possible exposure to chemical weapons agents in Mosul, where Islamic State is fighting off an offensive by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, the United Nations said on Saturday.

The U.N.’s World Health Organization has activated with partners and local health authorities “an emergency response plan to safely treat men, women and children who may be exposed to the highly toxic chemical,” the agency said in a statement.

It said all 12 patients had been received since March 1 for treatment which they are undergoing in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, east of Mosul.

Four of them are showing “severe signs associated with exposure to a blister agent”. The patients were exposed to the chemical agents in the eastern side of Mosul.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday that five children and two women were receiving treatment for exposure to chemical agents.

The ICRC statement did not say which side used the chemical agents that caused blisters, redness in the eyes, irritation, vomiting and coughing.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19. The eastern side remains within reach of the militants’ rockets and mortar shells.

Defeating Islamic State in Mosul would crush the Iraqi wing of the caliphate declared by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in 2014, over parts of Iraq and Syria.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, called for an investigation.

“This is horrible. If the alleged use of chemical weapons is confirmed, this is a serious violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime, regardless of who the targets or the victims of the attacks are,” she said in a statement.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Catherine Evans)