UNSC set for Syria clash as West readies for attack

BEIRUT. — The United Nations Security Council was set for a showdown over Syria yesterday as Britain sought authorisation for Western military action that Russia called premature and seemed certain to block. UN chemical weapons experts investigating a gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus made a second trip over the front line to take samples.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pleaded for them to be given time to complete their mission and a UN official said there was friction with impatient Western governments which show little interest in waiting for the inspectors’ report.

The United States and European and Middle Eastern allies have already pinned the blame on President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and a senior US official said planning was under way for possibly several days of attacks by several countries.

“We’re talking to a number of different allies regarding participation in a possible kinetic strike,” the official said.
That has set Western leaders on a collision course with Moscow, Assad’s main arms supplier, as well as with China, which also has a veto in the Security Council and has criticised what it sees as a push for Iraq-style “regime change” — despite US denials that President Barack Obama aims to overthrow Assad.

A Syrian minister showed up at the UN team’s Damascus hotel to deliver what he said was evidence that it was rebel “terrorist groups” who had used sarin gas last Wednesday — “with the help of the United States, the United Kingdom and France”.

Elsewhere in the capital, Syrians were stocking up on food, bottled water and other essentials and bracing for bombing.
A spokesman for Ban later said the UN chief was not asking for a further four days for the team, which began tests on Monday and completed a second site visit yesterday: “They have four days of work to complete,” he said.

Obama and his allies, not to mention Western electorates, show little appetite for new foreign wars and are wary of Islamist militants among the Syrian rebels. But leaders say they cannot let Assad get away with using chemical weapons and that they feel obliged to act to enforce a ban on using poison gas. — Reuters.