Tillerson: ‘No doubt’ Assad was behind chemical attack in Syria

In a television interview, Erdogan said Turkey is “ready to do what falls to us” and called for a meeting of the USA -led coalition in Syria to discuss options, according to Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency.

Syria’s regime and Russian Federation hit back yesterday at accusations that Damascus was behind a deadly chemical weapons attack, as pressure built for global action over what Washington called an “affront to humanity”.

The administration has been put to the test this week amid an worldwide outcry over the newly horrifying violence in Syria.

For six years, civil war has ravaged Syria, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing half of the nation’s population.

The area of the town is hard to access and as more time passes in the aftermath of the attack, it will be increasingly hard to determine exactly what happened.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday condemned the attack, saying it had crossed “many, many lines” and put the blame squarely on Assad’s forces.

At a White House news conference Wednesday with visiting Jordanian King Abdullah, President Donald Trump described the attack as an “affront to humanity that can not be tolerated.'” Asked whether he would consider a military response, the president was deliberately vague, “I’m not saying I’m doing anything one way or another”.

Today: Trump tells reporters about Assad, “I guess he’s running things, so something should happen”.

The statements come as the Pentagon presents a range of possible military options the United States could take in response to the attack. At the time, several American ships in the Mediterranean were poised to launch missiles, only for Obama to abruptly pull back after key U.S. ally Britain and the U.S. Congress balked at his plan. He refused to elaborate, but his words are representative of Washington’s firm line in response to the chemical weapons attack.

USA aircraft also would have to contend with a modest web of Syrian air defenses and potentially more advanced types of surface-to-air missiles provided by Russian Federation.

Diplomats were also meeting in Brussels for a major donors’ conference on the future of Syria and the region.

Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham put out a joint statement Thursday that called for the U.S.to lead “an worldwide coalition to ground [Assad’s] air force”.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said earlier on Thursday it was too early to accuse the Syrian government of being responsible for the attack in Idlib and said a proper investigation was needed, the RIA news agency reported. Russian Federation intervened on Assad’s behalf in late 2015, adding to a fight that now includes Iranian, Turkish, Syrian and extremist forces.

The official added that US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and White House national security adviser HR McMaster had already been in talks on the matter. It was unclear how fast the president planned to decide and implement a response, according to the official, who insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the sensitive planning. Trump told reporters traveling with him to Florida Thursday that he may speak with Putin.

The Syrian government has denied involvement in the assault, while Russian Federation, which is supporting Assad’s forces in the Syrian conflict, has urged others not to rush to judgment and threatened to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning it.

Moscow and Damascus “enjoy a relationship of cooperation, of exchange of views and full mutual support“, Peskov said.

“This is totally wrong“, he said, referring to any assumptions suggesting that Moscow can direct Damascus’ actions.

At least 86 people people including 30 children were killed in Tuesday’s suspected chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun in Idlib province, a rebel-held area in north-western Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. If Assad’s military persists in further gas attacks, the Trump administration might logically pursue increased retaliation.

“We are considering an appropriate response for this chemical weapons attack which violates all previous United Nations resolutions”, Tillerson responded as seen in the MSNBC clip above.

The bombs hit a hospital in an area where the al-Nusra Front operates damaging operating rooms and injuring medical professionals, the officials said.