U.S. says chemical weapons attack in Syria was 'war crime'

Washington in retaliation launched missile strikes on a Syrian air base it said was the starting point for the chemical weapons attack, a move that ratcheted up tensions between the United States and Syria's ally Russian Federation.

But throughout the press conference, Lavrov continued to cast doubt on the US assertion that Assad ordered a chemical weapons attack last week that killed over 100 Syrians, including dozens of children. "They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack", he said, referring to the USA missile strike.

A planned vote on a resolution collapsed Thursday night at the United Nations as the USA launched missiles on a Syrian base believed to be responsible for the chemical attack.

British scientists have analyzed samples from the site of a suspected chemical attack in Syria and concluded that sarin or a sarin-like substance was used, the British ambassador to the United Nations said Wednesday.

Mr Assad told AFP TV: "It's not clear whether it happened or not, how can you verify a video?" We've seen a lot of fake videos so far, and we have evidence that those videos were found to be faked, ' he said when referring to the media rush from the West about the fact.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that OPCW inspectors should visit both the Syrian air base, which the USA said served as a platform for the attack, and Khan Sheikhoun to get a full and objective picture.

Denouncing a "very barbaric" attack, Trump ordered a strike that saw 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles slam into the airbase in central Syria from where Washington accused Assad's forces of launching the attack.

"We gave up our arsenal three years ago", he said.

But several experts have said that only the Syrian regime is likely to have stockpiles of Sarin gas. But "with its veto, Russian Federation said no to accountability". -Russian relations - which echoed a similar assessment made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hours earlier in Moscow - came Wednesday after a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House. "There is a low level of trust between the two countries", Tillerson said.

"We hope that the U.S. president will become aware of that analysis", he said on Thursday. "The world's two foremost nuclear powers can not have this kind of relationship".

The U.S. blamed the Syrian government for launching the attack, but Russian Federation claimed that the victims were killed by toxic agents released from a rebel chemical arsenal hit by Syrian warplanes. "I like to think they didn't know".

In a show of continued support for the regime, Moscow will host Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem for talks with Lavrov on Thursday.

Since breaking out with mass protests in March 2011, Syria's conflict has spiralled into a devastating civil war that has left more than 320,000 people dead and forced millions from their homes. The United States, Turkey and other Western states have blamed the Assad regime for the deaths.