US officials say Russian inaction enabled Syria chemical attack

It came as allies of Damascus threatened reprisals against any party that carries out 'aggression' against Syria.

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, pictured here on March 22, 2017, said Syria was able to execute the chemical attack because Moscow had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons in Syria. Cliff Owen, File / AP PhotoShow less

WASHINGTON // Trump administration officials on Sunday blamed Russian inaction for enabling last week’s chemical attack in Syria as US secretary of state Rex Tillerson prepared to explain Washington’s retaliatory missile strikes to Moscow.

Mr Tillerson said Syria was able to execute the attack, which killed scores of people, because Moscow had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons in Syria.

“I think the real failure here has been Russia’s failure to live up to its commitments under the chemical weapons agreements that were entered into in 2013,” he said.

“The failure related to the recent strike and the recent terrible chemical weapons attack in large measure is a failure on Russia’s part to achieve its commitment to the international community.”

Meanwhile, White House national security adviser HR McMaster said Syria’s “sponsors”, Russia and Iran, were enabling Syrian president Bashar Al Assad’s “campaign of mass murder against his own civilians”.

The remarks came as allies of Damascus threatened reprisals against any party that carries out “aggression” against Syria.

“The aggression against Syria oversteps all red lines. We will react firmly to any aggression against Syria and to any infringement of red lines, whoever carries them out,” said a statement from the Syria-based joint operations room for Russia, Iran and allied forces, including Hizbollah.

“The United States knows very well our ability to react,” added the statement published on the website of Al-Watan, a daily newspaper close to the regime.

On Friday, the US carried out missile strikes on a Syrian airbase in what was Washington’s first military action against Mr Al Assad’s government since the start of Syria’s six-year war.

It came after a chemical attack on the rebel-held Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday killed at least 87 people, including many children. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the attack.

“We condemn any attack targeting civilians and also condemn what happened in Khan Sheikhoun, even if we are convinced it was a premeditated act by certain countries and organisations to serve as a pretext to attack Syria,” said the statement.

Mr Tillerson, who is expected to visit Moscow on Wednesday for talks with Russian officials, said on Sunday there was “no change” to the US military posture towards Syria.

But Mr McMaster said the US would take further action in Syria if necessary.

“We’re prepared to do more. In fact, we were prepared to do more two days ago,” he said. “The president will make whatever decision he thinks is in the best interests of the American people.”

He added that Russian leaders were supporting “a murderous regime” and their actions would dictate the future of US-Russian relations.

“Do they want it to be a relationship of competition and potential conflict,” he said. “Or do they want it to be a relationship in which we can find areas of cooperation that are in our mutual interest?”

Mr Tillerson stopped short of accusing Russia of direct involvement in planning or carrying out the attack, saying he had not seen “any hard evidence” to suggest Moscow was an accomplice to Mr Al Assad.

But he said the US expected Russia to take a tougher stance by rethinking its alliance with Mr Al Assad because “every time one of these horrific attacks occurs, it draws Russia closer into some level of responsibility”.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said in a phone call, meanwhile, that aggressive US actions against Syria were not permissible and violated international law, according to the Kremlin.

And in a phone call with Mr Al Assad, Mr Rouhani called the US strikes a “blatant violation” of Damascus’s sovereignty, Syrian state media reported. In the same call, Mr Al Assad accused Washington of trying to boost the morale of “terror groups” in Syria. The government refers to all those fighting against it as terrorists.

Also on Sunday, Iran’s state Irna news agency reported that the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had said the US made a “strategic mistake” by attacking Syria.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will not leave the field ... in the face of threats,” he was reported as saying, alluding to suspicions that the US intended the attack as a sign it was willing to attack other countries, including Iran.

“Former American officials created Daesh and the current leaders are reinforcing it,” he added.

On the ground in Syria, ISIL militants launched two suicide attacks on US-backed Syrian rebels near the border with Iraq, killing at least 12 people and wounding many more, rebels sources said on Sunday.

The toll included eight ISIL fighters and four of their own men.

An attack at midnight on a heavily defended base near the Al Tanf border crossing involved at least one explosive-laden vehicle that rammed an entrance. At least two US-backed rebels were killed and scores wounded, a rebel source said.

The militants also staged a suicide attack on a convoy of rebel fighters from the Western-backed Osoud Al Sharqiya rebel group, who had sent reinforcements from their outpost near the Rukban refugee camp further south-west. Two of the fighters in the convoy were killed in the ambush.

* Reuters, Agence France-Presse