SYRIA NEWS-DAY BY DAY-Bashar al-Assad'S FILE

[مستر محمد سلام]

Syria: US secretary of state John Kerry calls chemical attack 'cowardly crime' - as it happened

Today's focus is very much on Syria, with rapid developments on several fronts. Here's a very brief precis of where we are now:
• Britain seems to be edging towards support for military action against Bashar al-Assad's rule after the foreign secretary, William Hague, said diplomatic options to halt the bloodshed in Syria appeared to have failed. Hague said Britain and it's allies could intervene without specific UN authority.
• A UN team is expected to visit the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack near Damascus. Reporters saw the inspectors leave their hotel this morning.
• Assad has used an interview with a Russian newspaper to deny that his forces used chemical weapons, and to predict that any foreign intervention would end in failure.




And now to the inspectors, who were granted permission yesterday to visit the site of Wedesday's suspected chemical attack in the suburb of Ghouta, in which hundreds of people are reported to have been killed. Rebels, who hold the area, say the area was targeted by gas-filled shells fired by government forces. Assad has dismissed this idea as "nonsense".
Reporters saw the six-car convoy of UN chemical weapons experts, clad in blue body armour, leave their hotel accompanied Syrian security forces. The US says the area concerned has faced heavy conventional shelling in subsequent days, and it is possible any evidence will have been destroyed.