Syrian army tanks in the Jobar neighbourhood of Damascus, August 24 Washington warned Syria it would face action over the \"moral obscenity\" of a gruesome chemical weapons attack, as UN inspectors prepared to begin gathering evidence about the incident for a second day after braving sniper fire on Monday.
A very sudden drumbeat toward some kind of US and/or allied retaliation against Syria seemed to be getting louder.
But President Bashar al-Assad warned on Monday that the US will face a Vietnam-like scenario if it chooses to intervene militarily in Syria’s 29-month-old conflict.
“Failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day,” Reuters quoted Assad as saying in an interview published by Russian newspaper Izvestia on Monday.
While denying Syrian forces used chemical weapons in Ghouta, where opposition claims over 1000 people were killed, he said the US will be defeated if it intervenes.
“Would any state use chemicals or any other weapons of mass destruction in a place where its own forces are concentrated? That would go against elementary logic,” he said.
Assad’s comments were echoed by Russia, which warned on Tuesday that any military strike against Syria would have catastrophic consequences, and called on the US to show “prudence” and follow international law, Agence France Presse reported.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia - a staunch Assad ally that provides the regime with diplomatic cover by blocking UN Security Council action - on Monday told British Prime Minister David Cameron there was no proof Damascus had used chemical weapons, according to Cameron\'s office.
Cameron cut short his holiday on Monday to return to London to plan a response. Britain, along with France, has been in the forefront of demands for tougher action against Assad\'s regime.
The US cancelled a meeting with Russia on the Syrian conflict that had been scheduled for this week in The Hague, the State Department said.



Speaking amid reports that Washington and its allies are preparing to launch a punitive cruise missile strike on Syrian targets, US Secretary of State John Kerry accused President Bashar al-Assad\'s regime of engaging in a cover-up.
\"Let me be clear. The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity,\" Kerry declared in a televised statement.
\"By any standard it is inexcusable, and despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable.\"
 Kerry said Washington would provide more evidence of who was behind the attack, and that Obama was determined the guilty would face consequences.
\"We have additional information about this attack, and that information is being compiled and reviewed together with our partners, and we will provide that information in the days ahead,\" he warned.
\"Make no mistake. President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world\'s most heinous weapons against the world\'s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious.\"



Kerry was speaking as UN inspectors met survivors of last week\'s attack, which the independent medical agency Doctors Without Borders has said left at least 355 people dead from \"neurotoxic symptoms\".
The UN convoy came under sniper fire as it tried to approach the Damascus suburb where the attack was reported, but the team nevertheless managed to visit victims receiving treatment in two nearby hospitals.
\"It was a very productive day,\" UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters, adding that the team, led by Swedish expert Ake Sellstrom, is \"already gathering valuable evidence\".
UN leader Ban Ki-moon said that despite the \"very dangerous circumstances\" the investigators \"visited two hospitals, they interviewed witnesses, survivors and doctors. They also collected some samples\".
The UN team was in a buffer zone between government and opposition-held areas when it came under attack.
Ban said the United Nations had made a \"strong complaint\" to the Syrian government and opposition forces. The rebels and Assad\'s government traded blame for the sniper assault just as they did the chemical attack.
The United States accused Syrian government forces of resuming their shelling of the attack site soon after the UN team departed in a bid to destroy evidence.
Senior military officers from Western and Muslim countries started gathering in Jordan Monday to discuss the regional impact of the war in Syria, Jordanian officials said.
US army chief General Martin Dempsey will take part, as would chiefs of staff from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada, said an official, cited by state news agency Petra.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said on Monday it would join an international coalition against Syria even without a consensus within the UN security council.
\"We always prioritise acting together with the international community, with United Nations decisions. If such a decision doesn\'t emerge from the UN security council, other alternatives ... would come on to the agenda,\" Davutoglu told the Milliyet daily.
\"Currently 36 to 37 countries are discussing these alternatives. If a coalition is formed against Syria in this process, Turkey would take its place in this coalition.\"
France\'s foreign minister said no decision had yet been made on military action, but that doing nothing was not an option.
\"The decision has not been taken,\" Laurent Fabius told Europe 1 radio on Monday. \"There has to be a proportional reaction ... and that will be decided in the coming days.
\"All options are envisaged. The only one that is not on the table is to not do anything.\"
A senior Israeli delegation meanwhile visited the White House for high-level talks on the Syrian crisis and the showdown over Iran\'s controversial nuclear program.
The Syrian opposition says more than 1300 people died when toxic gases were unleashed on Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiyet al-Sham, two neighborhoods on the outskirts of Damascus.
Syria approved the UN inspection on Sunday, but US officials said it was too little, too late, arguing that persistent shelling had \"corrupted\" the site.
The inspection came as the West appeared to be moving closer to launching a military response, after officials confirmed the US Navy has four warships armed with cruise missiles on standby in the eastern Mediterranean.
With China and Moscow expected to boycott any resolution backing a military strike, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the West could act even without full UN Security Council backing.
There is also precedent for Obama to act militarily without US congressional backing, despite a law technically requiring it.
The alleged poison gas attack is only the latest atrocity in a conflict that has claimed more than 100,000 lives since March 2011.
Assad, in an interview with a Russian newspaper published Monday, denied accusations his government was behind the attack, calling the charges an \"insult to common sense\".
\"The United States faces failure just like in all the previous wars they waged,\" he added.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meanwhile warned of the \"extremely dangerous consequences of a possible new military intervention\" and said intervening without a UN Security Council resolution would be illegal.
Experts believe the most likely US action would see sea-launched cruise missiles target Syrian military installations and artillery batteries deemed complicit in the chemical weapons attack.
Additional source: AFP