Fourteen people, including Iranians, were killed in a missile attack early in the morning on an air base in central Syria, a war-monitoring group said.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said most of the 14 killed were either Iranians or members of Iran-backed groups.
Syria’s state-run news agency earlier reported that missiles struck the T4 air base early on Monday.
If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018
....to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018
Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018
It said the attack left people dead and wounded. Although the agency said it was likely “an American aggression,” US officials said the United States had not launched any airstrikes on Syria.
Al-Manar TV station of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which is fighting in Syria alongside the government forces, described the attack as an “Israeli aggression”.
The Observatory said it was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.
The attack comes as the United Nations Security Council is due to meet twice on Monday following rival requests by Russia and the United States after a deadly chemical attack in Syria and a warning by US president Donald Trump that there would be a “big price to pay”.
Russia called for a meeting of the 15-member council on “international threats to peace and security”, though the precise topic of discussion was not immediately clear, diplomats said on Sunday.
A minute later the United States, France, Britain, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Kuwait, Peru and Ivory Coast called for a meeting to discuss the chemical weapons attack in Syria.
“The Security Council has to come together and demand immediate access for first responders, support an independent investigation into what happened, and hold accountable those responsible for this atrocious act,” US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in a statement on Sunday.
Haley warned last month that if the UN Security Council fails to act on Syria, Washington “remains prepared to act if we must”, just as it did last year when it bombed a Syrian government air base over a deadly chemical weapons attack.
The council president for April, Peru, initially scheduled a meeting on the chemical attack for Monday morning and a meeting on the Russian request for Monday afternoon. However, diplomats said Russia was insisting its meeting be held first because its request was made first.
Trump said on Sunday there would be a “big price to pay” after medical aid groups reported dozens of people were killed by poison gas in a besieged rebel-held town in Syria. The Syrian government denied its forces had launched such an attack and Russia, President Bashar al-Assad’s most powerful ally, called the reports bogus.
Tom Bossert, Trump's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, told ABC's This Week the White House would not rule out launching another missile attack and called photos of the incident "horrible". One video of the new attack shared by activists showed bodies of around a dozen children, women and men, some with foam at the mouth. "Douma city, April 7 ... there is a strong smell here," a voice can be heard saying.
President Trump also spoke by phone on Sunday to Iraqi prime minister Haider Al-Abadi about the chemical attack and the need to work together to defeat Islamic State (Isis) militants, the White House said.
A joint statement by the medical relief organisation Syrian American Medical Society (Sams) and the civil defence service, which operates in rebel-held areas, said 49 people had died in the attack late on Saturday in the town of Douma. US and other officials said they were working on Sunday to verify details of the attack.
Last year, one factor in Trump’s decision to bomb Syria was televised images of dead children.
Two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Trump would likely await a conclusive “high confidence” intelligence assessment that the government used chemical weapons.
The presence of Russian forces at a number of Syrian military bases complicates the process for picking potential targets for any strike, said one official.
While some in the administration believe Russian forces should not be considered immune to attack because of Moscow’s support for Assad, officials said Putin would see any loss of Russian lives or equipment as a deliberate escalation, and likely would respond by increasing support for Assad, or retaliating in other ways.
- Reuters