FOREIGN POLICY/MILITARY/SYRIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration warned Syria about an increase in the use of poison gas against civilians, despite last year’s cruise-missile strike aimed at deterring the Assad regime from carrying out such attacks.
U.S. officials on Thursday [2-1-18] said the Syrian military was shifting tactics to try to conceal its role in using such weapons. And they said the Trump administration wouldn’t rule out another military strike against President Bashar al-Assad’s military if he doesn’t stop the attacks… President Donald Trump ordered a cruise-missile strike last April on a Syrian airfield that had been used to carry out a sarin-gas attack that killed at least 70 men, women and children.
Since then, the Assad regime has carried out at least 10 attacks using chlorine gas, the Syrian American Medical Society said, including four in the past week, raising new concerns in Washington that Mr. Assad is accelerating his use of such weapons.
There were no deaths from the 10 attacks, the group said, adding that there were signs that the Assad regime had used sarin gas in one small attack in November.
The Trump administration has stepped up its pressure on Syria and Russia in an effort to get Mr. Assad to stop using chemical weapons. But those efforts have yet to yield any results… Syrian officials didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Russian Embassy referred to a statement issued by its Foreign Ministry two weeks ago that denounced U.S. allegations of Russian culpability in Syrian chemical-weapons use as propaganda designed to demonize Moscow…
While Syria got rid of much of the banned stocks, the U.S. officials said it was highly likely that the regime hid some from inspectors.”
-Dion Nissenbaum, “U.S. Says Syria Is Moving to Conceal Chemical Weapons Use Amid Rise in Attacks,” The Wall Street Journal online, Feb. 1, 2018 06:37pm