French MPs to get Syria 'evidence'
- UK public 'against intervention'
- Bowen: Pondering looming attack
- UK rules out fresh vote
- Mardell: Obama's biggest gamble
- In pictures: Tension in Syria
- US readers react to Obama move 2 September 2013 Last updated at 15:55 GMT
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Syrian opposition forces say they're not convinced the US will launch an attack against President AssadFrench PM Jean-Marc Ayrault is to present intelligence to MPs which he says shows Syria used chemical weapons.The dossier is said to show that Syria has large chemical stockpiles and was behind a chemical attack which the US says killed more than 1,400 people.
France and the US are both pushing for punitive military action against the Syrian regime. The UK parliament has voted to stay out of such a raid.
Damascus denies the attack, blaming rebel forces for the use of chemicals.
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Analysis
I think people I've spoken to within the Syrian regime quite like being eyeball-to-eyeball with the US. I think they believe President Obama is bent on attacking Syria, in fact that's what they say quite openly.
So while they describe the US decision to refer it to a vote in Congress as wisdom, they say it should also go back to the UN and that any action would be illegal if it didn't get UN authorisation.
Since the Russians have said very openly in the Security Council that they wouldn't vote to authorise anything like this, and President Obama has said he's very comfortable going ahead without a Security Council resolution, that means in a sense, in the eyes of the Syrian regime, the battle lines are now drawn, and they are trying to get themselves ready for whatever happens.
But Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he is personally convinced that a chemical attack took place and that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was responsible.There must be "a firm international response" to deter any future use of such weapons, he said, or else it would send a "dangerous signal to dictators all over the world".
But he added that he did envisage Nato having a role in such action, saying he would expect any military response to be "a very short, measured, targeted operation" and that the alliance's resources would not be needed.
Meanwhile fighting has continued across Syria, in a conflict which has already left an estimated 100,000 people dead since 2011. On Monday, activists said 20 rebel fighters were killed in an army ambush in Adra, north-east of Damascus, AFP news agency reports.
Vote pressure The alleged chemical attack took place in the Gouta, an eastern area of the capital on 21 August. The US says 426 children were among the more than 1,400 people killed.
The US administration has already presented its case that the Assad regime was behind the attack, and now Mr Ayrault will present France's own intelligence dossier to parliamentary leaders.
"We are going to give the MPs everything we have - classified until now - to enable every one of them to take on board the reality of the unacceptable attack," he said on Monday.
French MPs are due to debate the issue on Wednesday, and there is growing pressure for a vote on the issue, as happened in the UK and has been promised in the US.Syria's deputy foreign minister said terrorism will flourish everywhere if Syria is attacked
US lawmakers are due to reconvene next week, and White House officials have said that when it comes to a vote, they believe there will be enough support for the president.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday samples from hair and blood gathered after the 21 August attack had tested positive for "signatures of sarin", and that he was confident Congress would give its approval for strikes, "because they understand the stakes".
However some lawmakers have expressed doubts about President Barack Obama's plan for a "limited, narrow" military operation, questioning its purpose and effectiveness.
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President Obama has taken the biggest gamble of his presidency”By putting off an attack and seeking congressional approval, President Obama has taken the biggest gamble of his presidency, the BBC's North America editor Mark Mardell says.He adds that it would be disastrous for the president if Congress does not back him, and his decision to call for a vote would look foolish.
In other developments:
- A BBC poll shows about three-quarters of the British public believe MPs were right to reject UK military action in Syria in a vote last week
- UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said parliament will not vote again if stronger evidence of a state chemical attack emerges
- Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the US intelligence blaming Damascus is "absolutely unconvincing"
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While fighting rages on in Syria, debate
continues in the US and France over whether they will intervene
militarily following the chemical attack of 21 August.
1/5
Jabat al-Nusra and other groups linked to al-Qaeda have come to play a significant anti-Assad role in the conflict.
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Sarin nerve agent
- Considered 20 times more deadly than cyanide
- Attacks the nervous system, often causing respiratory failure. Can cause death within minutes of exposure
- Difficult to detect as it is odourless, tasteless and colourless
- Syria is believed to have started producing it in the 1980s
- Among the agents used by the Iraqi government when it killed 5,000 Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in 1988
Mr Mekdad - considered to be
highly influential within the Assad government - also warned that
possible US intervention would deepen "hatred for the Americans" and
destabilise the whole Middle East.
President Obama was "determined to launch an attack", he
said, and the US Congress would base any decision on attacking Syria on
whether it was in the interests of Israel.Syria is known to have extensive supplies of chemical weapons.
Mr Obama has often said that using them would cross a "red line", prompting US intervention.
Damascus has been fighting rebel forces since March 2011.
More than 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the conflict, and at least 1.7 million have become refugees.
Forces which could be used against Syria:
• Airbases at Incirlik and Izmir in Turkey, and in Jordan, could be used to carry out strikes
• Two aircraft carriers - USS Nimitz and USS Harry S Truman are in the wider region
• French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is currently in Toulon in the western Mediterranean
• French Rafale and Mirage aircraft can also operate from Al-Dhahra airbase in the UAE
COPY http://www.bbc.co.uk
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