Mohamed Ameen Dabhelia – 2018/04/12

The latest bombardment in the seven-year war in Syria, an apparent chemical attack in the suburb of Douma at dusk on Saturday, has presented a new challenge to administrations that has vowed to strongly respond.

However, much is still unclear or unconfirmed about the attack, including what action the United States will take and what impact it will have on relationships with allies and adversaries.

Journalist Gareth Browne told Radio Islam that the number of lives that were lost in the most recent chemical attack is shocking.

“At least 40 people were killed in just one attack, and the images and the video that came out were very shocking.”

Browne says the United States will now lead the movement to try to remove Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

“Simply because we’ve seen Trump on twitter using this quite fiery rhetoric that makes it now very difficult to back down from.”

Browne adds that the UK and France are the United States most loyal ally in a military sense, so this would probably add them in to the equation too.

“We’ve also seen statements of support from gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and any form of intervention would see support from Turkey as well.”

Browne says that US warships have already made their way in to the Eastern Mediterranean in range of Syrian targets.

Listen to the full interview with Journalist Gareth Browne: