US and allied strikes against Syria overnight took out targets with materiel that could have been used to produce chemical weapons such as sarin, a senior administration official told reporters on Saturday. The official said there was “information” that showed that both sarin and chlorine were used in the most recent chemical weapons attack in Syria, prompting the US strikes. “We assess that both sarin and chlorine were used in the attack,” the official said. The official added that “while the available information is much greater on the chlorine use, we do have significant information that also points to sarin use” in the attack. Western powers said on Saturday their missile attacks struck at the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons program, but the restrained assault appeared unlikely to halt Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s progress in the 7-year-old civil war.

Source: Hindustan Times April 15, 2018 04:18 UTC