[van id=”politics/2018/04/14/nikki-haley-syria-chemical-weapons-dead-children-fake-news-sot.cnn”]
By Ray Sanchez and Laura Smith-Spark
The United States and Russia blamed each other Saturday for heightened international tensions after US, UK and French strikes against targets in Syria over the alleged use of chemical weapons.
As leaders of the three Western allies exchanged calls declaring the strikes a success against future use of illegal munitions, the US and Russian ambassadors to the United Nations pointed fingers during an emergency session of the UN Security Council.
The overnight strikes hit three sites — one in Damascus and two in Homs — which President Donald Trump said were “associated with the chemical weapon capabilities of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.”
The United States remains “locked and loaded” to strike Syria again in response to new chemical attacks, said Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, who accused Russia, a key Syrian ally, of covering up for the Assad government.
“The pictures of dead children were not fake news,” she told the Security Council. “They were the result of the Syrian regime’s barbaric inhumanity.”
But Russia failed to garner the necessary Security Council votes for a resolution condemning “the aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic by the US and its allies in violation of international law and the UN Charter.”
After the Security Council session, Haley’s Russian counterpart, Vassily Nebenzia, called the day’s developments “a blow to a political settlement” in the Syria crisis.
“I hope that hot heads will cool down and we can rebuild what has been destroyed,” Nebenzia told reporters, adding that the United States, France and the UK had engaged in “diplomacy of mythmaking, hypocrisy and falsehoods.”
Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to United Nations, accused the three Western allies of undermining international peace and security and asked that copies of the UN Charter be distributed to their representatives so they can “enlighten themselves and awaken themselves from their ignorance and tyranny.”
The airstrikes followed a week of threats of retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack on civilians in Douma, outside Damascus, where Syrian forces have long been battling rebels.
Trump hailed the strike as “perfectly executed” in a tweet posted Saturday, adding “Mission Accomplished!”
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the strikes an “act of aggression against a sovereign state” and said they were against the UN Charter.
Assad said the airstrikes would “only increase the determination of Syria and its people to continue fighting and crushing terrorism in every inch of the country,” according to Syrian state TV.
UK’s May: ‘Not about regime change’
In a televised statement Saturday, May said UK forces had undertaken a “limited and targeted strike” and that there had been “no practicable alternative to the use of force to degrade and deter the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime.”
While a full assessment has not yet been completed, “we believe that the action was successful,” she said. “This was not about interfering in a civil war. And it was not about regime change.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it believed the Western allies’ action was not in retaliation for what happened in Douma but instead was a reaction to the Syrian army’s “success” in liberating territory from rebels.
Iran, also a key ally of the Assad government, also condemned the strikes. “I firmly declare that the Presidents of US and France and British PM committed a major crime,” Khamenei tweeted.
International response
Turkey, another important player in the Syrian conflict, said it viewed the airstrikes as “an appropriate response” to the Douma attack, according to a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a televised speech to supporters of his political party, said that not responding would be “unthinkable.”
“It’s impossible for us to accept the situation that Syrian children fall into,” he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said all available evidence pointed to the Assad regime being responsible for the Douma attack and criticized Russia for blocking an independent investigation through the Security Council.
“The military operation was necessary and appropriate to preserve the effectiveness of the international ban on the use of chemical weapons and to warn the Syrian regime of further violations,” Merkel said in a statement.
An Israeli official told CNN that the strikes enforced the red line drawn by Trump last year. In April 2017, the United States launched a military strike on a Syrian government airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians.
“Syria continues to engage in and provide a base for murderous actions, including those of Iran, that put its territory, its forces and its leadership at risk,” the Israeli official said.
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