How can chemical attacks in Syria be stopped?
Airbase near Homs city targeted, just hours after deaths of at least 85 in suspected chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta.
A “big price to pay”. That is the warning from the US President Donald Trump to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his backers Iran and Russia.
It was made in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack in Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, on Saturday. At least 70 people were killed.
United Nations investigators have documented at least 33 alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria since 2011. They say 27 of them were carried out by government forces.
The worst was in Eastern Ghouta in August 2013: a sarin gas attack that killed at least 1,000 people.
But with Trump sending mixed signals on US troops in Syria, what more can he do to stop such attacks?
Presenter: Darren Jordon
Guests:
Robert Ford – Former US ambassador to Syria
Haid Haid – Syria Consulting Research Fellow at Chatham House, UK
Alexey Khlebnikov – Middle East expert at the Russian International Affairs Council