WASHINGTON -- The accusation from President Donald Trump's administration that Syrian forces are planning another chemical weapons attack on rebels is also a warning to Russia and Iran that they are "on notice" if such an attack takes place, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Tuesday.
Nikki Haley told a congressional panel that the White House's earlier statement was a direct warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
"The goal is at this point not just to send Assad a message but to send Russia and Iran a message that if this happens again, we are putting you on notice," Haley said.
"It is very much letting them know we are not going to give you a pass on killing men, women and children."
Asked whether the focus on Assad's targeting of civilians represents a widening of the U.S. mission in fighting terrorism in Syria and Iraq, Haley replied: "I don't think we have to pick one or the other."
"ISIS is always going to be our priority, but I think we should always be realistic about the dangers of Assad," she said, referring to the Islamic State militant group.
Trump's administration threatened that Syria will pay "a heavy price" if it follows through on what the U.S. says are preparations for another chemical-weapons attack.
Shortly after the White House statement late Monday, Haley posted her approval of it via Twitter.
"Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people," she wrote.
The chemical threat and White House warning illustrate the complexities of the fighting in Syria, a country from which the Islamic State marched into Iraq in 2014 and prompted a U.S. return to the Middle East's battlefield. The U.S. now has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq and about 1,000 in Syria.
Trump has said he won't stand for Syria's use of chemical weapons, which are banned under international law and are particularly worrisome in the Arab country because they could fall into extremists' hands.
The Pentagon on Tuesday said it detected "active preparations" by Syria for a chemical attack from the same air base where Syrian aircraft embarked on a sarin gas strike on April 4, killing almost 90 people. Days later, Trump ordered a cruise missile attack against the base in retaliation.
The Syrian government has denied it ever used banned chemicals, and it rejected the United States' latest allegation Tuesday.
Syria's two main allies, Russia and Iran, joined in criticizing the U.S. Iran's foreign minister called the U.S. threat a "dangerous escalation." A senior Russian lawmaker accused the U.S. of "provocation."
It was unclear if the U.S. saw a Syrian attack as imminent. Nevertheless, the White House showed that it wouldn't turn a blind eye. Since Trump's inauguration, U.S. involvement in Syria has deepened. Earlier this month, the U.S. shot down a Syrian fighter jet for the first time. It has twice downed Iranian drones.
The U.S. cruise missile strike in April was the first intentional U.S. assault on Assad's government or military.
The White House issued a brief written statement Monday night saying it had detected potential preparations for another chemical attack. Hours later, the Pentagon elaborated without offering many specifics.
"We have observed activities at Shayrat air base that suggest possible intent by the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons again," said a Pentagon spokesman, Marine Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway.
He said the activity was focused at least in part on one aircraft hangar at the central Shayrat air base. U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles hit the base in a barrage of strikes on April 7.
Rankine-Galloway added that Assad's "brutality" threatens the region and U.S. interests, and any Syrian attacks with weapons of mass destruction risk prompting others to use similar weapons.
Ali Haidar, the Syrian minister for national reconciliation, denied that Assad's government possesses chemical weapons and accused the White House of releasing its Monday night statement as part of a "diplomatic battle" against Syria at the United Nations.
Chemical weapons have killed hundreds of people since the start of Syria's 6-year-old civil war. The U.N. has blamed three attacks on Assad's government and a fourth on the Islamic State. The U.S., its Arab and Western allies, and Syrian opposition groups accuse Assad's forces of many more instances of using sarin and chlorine gas against civilians.
The Syrian government was supposed to have destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles after international inspectors visited the country between 2013 and 2014. That a significant chunk remained was "one of the worst-kept secrets in international diplomacy," a European official said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Russian reaction
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with reporters that Russia has no information about the impending threat of a chemical weapons attack and warned that any retaliation against the Assad government would be "unacceptable."
The Russian military intervened to shore up Assad's crumbling armed forces in 2015, and Moscow has never accepted the U.S.-led coalition's conclusion that the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun.
Peskov said Tuesday that "it is impossible, unlawful and absolutely wrong from the point of view of achieving a final Syrian settlement to put the blame on al-Assad without holding an inquiry."
French President Emmanuel Macron and Trump spoke by phone Tuesday about "the necessity to work on a common response in the case of a chemical attack in Syria," Macron's office said. They also discussed the need to "avoid any escalation" in the Persian Gulf and to fight terror financing.
U.K. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said Britain would back another U.S. cruise missile strike against Syrian targets if warranted.
"It must be proportionate, as always in war," Fallon told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday. "In the last case it was, and, if the Americans take similar action again, I want to be very clear we will support it."
Underscoring the messiness of Syria's crowded battlefield, a Britain-based human-rights group Tuesday accused the U.S.-led coalition of striking an Islamic State-run jail in eastern Syria, killing more than 40 prisoners.
The strike also reportedly killed Islamic State militants, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The coalition couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
The White House threat caught many in Trump's administration by surprise.
Several State Department officials typically involved in coordinating such announcements said they were caught off guard, and it appeared the underlying intelligence information was known only to a small group of senior officials.
Typically, the State Department, Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies would all be consulted before a White House declaration that was sure to ricochet across foreign capitals.
The State Department officials weren't authorized to discuss national security planning publicly and requested anonymity.
On Tuesday, deputy White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said "all relevant agencies ... were involved in the process from the beginning."
A nongovernmental source with close ties to the White House said the administration had received intelligence that the Syrians were mixing precursor chemicals for a possible sarin gas attack in either the east or south of the country, where government troops and allied forces have faced recent setbacks.
Information for this article was contributed by Robert Burns, Jill Colvin, Josh Lederman, Lolita C. Baldor, Richard Lardner, Vivian Salama and Matthew Lee of The Associated Press; by Louisa Loveluck, Dan Lamothe, Ellen Nakashima, Anne Gearan and David Filipov of The Washington Post; and by Kambiz Foroohar, Toluse Olorunnipa, Charlotte Ryan, Svenja O'Donnell, Stepan Kravchenko and Gregory Viscusi of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 06/28/2017