TERRORIST snipers opened fire on the UN inspection team in Damascus yesterday, with one car shot at ‘multiple times’, forcing the convoy to turn back.
The 20-member team was setting off to look into last Wednesday’s suspected chemical attacks in a Damascus suburb, but shortly after setting out from their hotel their cars came under fire ‘multiple times by unidentified snipers’, according to a statement from the UN.
‘The team returned safely back to the government checkpoint. The team will return to the area after replacing the vehicle,’ said the statement.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Royal Navy is reportedly moving ships into place for a possible strike on Syria in the next few days.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned yesterday that any intervention in Syria without a UN mandate would be a ‘grave violation of international law’.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned that ‘failure awaits the United States as in all previous wars it has unleashed, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day’.
Assad rejected as ‘politically motivated’ Western allegations about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army.
‘The comments made by politicians in the West and other countries are an insult to common sense . . . It is nonsense.
‘Would any state use chemical or any other weapons of mass destruction in a place where its own forces are concentrated? That would go against elementary logic.’
The Syrian president also said his country is dealing with both individual terrorist groups and entire terrorist armies that are backed by the same sponsors.
Assad said that Saudi Arabia is both the ideological and financial sponsor of the terrorists.
He said that tens of thousands of foreign terrorists are passing into Syria every month, adding that the Israeli regime is involved in fighting against the Syrian government and, as evidence, noted that Israel is treating ‘dozens of terrorists in its hospitals’.
Assad said that Western leaders would not succeed.
‘If someone dreams of turning Syria into a puppet of the West – they won’t succeed,’ he stated.
Russia also urged caution, calling on Washington to avoid ‘repeating past mistakes.’
‘All of this makes one recall the events that happened 10 years ago, when, using false information about Iraqis having weapons of mass destruction, the US bypassed the United Nations and started a scheme whose consequences are well known to everyone,’ the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Prime Minister Cameron is returning early from his holiday to chair tomorrow’s high level security briefing of senior ministers and defence and intelligence chiefs.
Hague stated yesterday that it would be possible for the UK and its allies to act without the UN’s unanimous backing.
