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Syria: Obama considering unilateral response
Merkel also discussed Syria by phone Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, insisting that the attack “requires an international reaction,” Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
Obama has ruled out putting American forces on the ground in Syria or setting up a no-fly zone over the country. He’s also said any U.S. response to the chemical weapons attack would be limited in scope and aimed solely at punishing Assad for deploying deadly gases, not at regime change. “We do have to make sure that when countries break international norms on weapons like chemical weapons that could threaten us, that they are held accountable,” he said during a television interview.
French President François Hollande says his country can go ahead with plans to strike Syria the British parliament’s failure to endorse military action.
“The chemical massacre of Damascus cannot and must not remain unpunished,” Hollande said in an interview with the newspaper Le Monde, published on Friday.
The most likely military option would be Tomahawk cruise missile strikes from four U.S. navy destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
