US calls for global response after alleged Syria chemical attack

Bloomberg

The US demanded an immediate international response to reports of a chemical attack outside Syria’s capital that rescue workers and activists said killed dozens.
The allegations emerged amid renewed government fire on Douma, the last rebel stronghold in the Eastern Ghouta suburb, after a truce in the area unraveled on April 06. A chemical weapons attack last April provoked a US missile strike, the first direct US hit on Bashar al-Assad’s regime since the conflict in Syria began in March 2011.
Syria’s official SANA news agency said the rapidly advancing army “doesn’t need to use any chemical weapons as the media channels
that support the terrorists are fabricating.” It cited an official it didn’t identify.
More than 40 people suffocated to death due to exposure to an unknown chemical agent, the White Helmets, an opposition-linked civil defense force that operates in rebel areas, said on Twitter. Images of lifeless children and women foaming from their mouths were circulated on social media. Fatalities could exceed 100 people, according to the Syrian National Coalition, an opposition umbrella group.
“Reports from a number of contacts and medical personnel on the ground indicate a potentially high number of casualties, including among families hiding in shelters,” the US State Department said in a statement. “These reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the
international community.”
The Tomahawk strike in 2017 increased tensions with Russia, which has backed Assad in his battle to suppress an uprising that morphed into a regional proxy war. The State Department said in its statement that Russia “‘ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks” and has “breached its commitments to the United Nations as a framework guarantor” to a 2013 agreement to strip Syria of its chemical weapons stockpiles.
Russia, whose backing of Assad turned the course of the war in his favour, denied that Syrian government forces deployed chemical weapons in Douma, according to the Tass news service, which cited Major General Yuri Yevtushenko.
More than seven years of war in Syria have killed half a million people and dispersed millions more as refugees. The fighting has also drawn in Iran, Russia, the US and Turkey, and a postwar scenario could include a continuation of Syria’s de facto partition into spheres of foreign influence.

Russia warns against strike
Bloomberg

Reports of a chemical attack outside Syria’s capital thrust the US and Russia into new confrontation on Sunday, with Washington calling for an immediate international response and Moscow warning against any military strike. Rescue workers and activists said dozens died in a chemical assault amid renewed government fire on Douma.
The allegations of chemical warfare come at a time when the US administration is pulling in different directions over Syria policy, with President Donald Trump calling for a speedy American pullout over the objections of the state and defense
departments. Trump suggested the US wouldn’t sit idly by, tweeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran “are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price…”