The United States accused the Syrian army of carrying out an April 4 attack in which scores of people died from poison gas. It responded by launching cruise missiles against a Syrian air base, and has said it would not tolerate use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. Britain endorsed the US response to the chemical attack, but was not directly involved. However, Johnson suggested the government would back Trump militarily if requested to do so in the event of any future chemical weapons attack. The April attack in Syria has raised tension between Western powers and Russia, which has provided military backing to Assad's government.

Source: Egypt Independent April 27, 2017 08:26 UTC