WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned that “missiles will be coming” in response to an alleged chemical atrocity in Syria, as Russia scrambled to deflect blame from its ally Bashar al-Assad.

With renewed US military action seemingly imminent — and as Trump threatened that the US missiles would be “nice and new and ‘smart!’” — both Washington and Moscow raised the rhetorical stakes.

Trump’s warlike tweet apparently came in response to a warning from Russia’s ambassador to Beirut, who took to a television network run by the armed group Hezbollah to warn that any US missiles would be shot down “as well as the sources they were fired from”.

If the US action follows the pattern of a previous punitive strike on Syria ordered by Trump last year it will begin with a salvo of cruise missiles fired from US warships in the Mediterranean.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said the Pentagon is ready to provide options for a Syria strike in response to a suspected chemical attack, but noted the US and its allies are still gathering information.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been coordinating closely with Washington, said he would decide on a response “in the coming days.”

“Our decision will not target allies of the regime or attack anyone but rather attack the regime’s chemical capabilities,” he said, insisting he did “not want an escalation.”

As it looked to head off the threat of Western strikes, Syria said it had invited the OPCW to visit the site of the alleged attack in Douma.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2018