US Secretary of State John Kerry has said Syrian government forces killed 1,429 people in a chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week.<\/p>\n
Mr Kerry said the dead included 426 children, and described the attack as an “inconceivable horror”.<\/p>\n
He did not mention military strikes, and said the government would consult Congress leaders over the next step.<\/p>\n
The government of President Bashar al-Assad has denied carrying out the attack and blames rebel forces.<\/p>\n
UN chemical weapons inspectors are investigating evidence for the chemical attacks and will present their evidence to the UN after they leave Damascus on Saturday.<\/p>\n
But Mr Kerry said the US now had the facts, which the government has published in a four-page assessment.<\/p>\n
He said the evidence showed 1,429 people had been killed. and that regime forces had prepared for the attack three days earlier.<\/p>\n
“We know rockets came only from regime-controlled areas and landed only in opposition-held areas,” he said.<\/p>\n
“All of these things we know, the American intelligence community has high confidence.”<\/p>\n
The US is pushing for intervention to stop the Syrian government from using chemical weapons.<\/p>\n
But the UN Security Council is unlikely to approve any military intervention because permanent member Russia is a close ally of the Syrian government, and has vetoed two previous draft resolutions.<\/p>\n
The US was also dealt a blow on Thursday when the UK parliament rejected a motion supporting the principle of military intervention.<\/p>\n
The vote rules the UK out of any potential alliance.<\/p>\n
However, US officials said they would continue to push for a coalition, and France said it would support the US.<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Secretary of State John Kerry has said Syrian government forces killed 1,429 people in a chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week. Mr Kerry said the dead included 426…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n