U.S. officials have “a very high level of confidence” that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime carried out a major chemical weapons attack last Saturday, the State Department said Friday.
“The Syrian government was behind this attack,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters.
That announcement came in part as a dismissal of the Russian allegation that the United Kingdom is trying to frame the Assad regime for the incident, as part of a broader western attempt to curtail Russia’s role in the region. U.S., British and French officials have countered that the attack in Douma, Syria, is just the latest in a long list of examples of Assad using chemical weapons with Russia’s implicit support.
“We’ve all been having conversations and sharing information, intelligence included,” Nauert said of the consultations between allies.
Russian officials are casting doubt on whether any attack took place at all.
“The residents of Douma know about no such attack,” Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia argued during a United Nations Security Council meeting Friday. “We have weighty justification to believe, and we have even information to believe that what took place is a provocation with the participation of certain countries intelligence services.”
The Russian Defense Ministry accused the United Kingdom, in particular, drawing mockery from a British diplomat.
“It’s some of the worst piece of fake news we’ve yet seen from Russia propaganda machine,” Karen Pierce, the UK ambassador to the UN, told reporters Friday.
She also dismissed Nebenzia’s suggestion that no attack took place, citing the World Health Organization’s estimate that 500 people “reported to hospitals with symptoms consonant with a poisoned gas attack” in the aftermath. “I think that speaks volumes,” Pierce said.
President Trump and western allies are mulling a possible military strike against Assad, though the specific course of action remains to be determined.
“Our president has not yet made a decision about possible actions in Syria,” Haley said Friday, “But should the United States and our allies decide to act in Syria, it will be in defense of a principle on which we all agree. It will be in defense of a bedrock international norm that benefits all nations… The United States and our allies will continue to stand up for truth, accountability, justice, and an end to the use of chemical weapons.”
That’s more ambiguous than some of Haley’s earlier comments, which seemed to promise a military attack after Trump tweeted that U.S. missiles “will be coming” for Assad’s regime. Russia has waged an aggressive diplomatic campaign against the prospective attack, warning of possible retaliation against western allies.
“We are banking on sober thinking among both American politicians and U.S. military brass, who perfectly understand that the risk of a clash between the two superpowers really does exist,” Nebenzia said Friday.
