• US guided-missile destroyer moves to easy striking range

• France to decide on strikes

The global chemical watchdog said yesterday it will deploy a team to the site of an alleged toxic attack in Syria, as United States President Donald Trump weighed military action with Damascus on high alert.

As it looked to head off the threat of Western strikes, Syria said it had invited the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to visit the site of the alleged attack. “Syria is ready to provide all necessary assistance to the mission,” it said. Several hours later, the OPCW said it will “shortly” deploy a fact-finding team to the rebel-held Syrian town of Douma for an investigation.

Warnings from the US leader there would be a “big price to pay” for the alleged attack have raised the spectre of an American strike on Syria, setting up a potential confrontation with regime backer Russia.  Moscow, which has troops on the ground in Syria, has already warned that US military action would be “very, very dangerous”.

Both Trump and his Defence Secretary Jim Mattis yesterday abruptly cancelled upcoming travel plans, as the USS Donald Cook, a guided-missile destroyer moved to within easy striking range of Syria.

In 2017, Trump launched a cruise missile strike against a Syrian air base in retaliation for a sarin attack the UN later pinned on President Bashar al-Assad.Syria’s government has denied accusations of using toxic weapons including chlorine and sarin throughout the country’s seven-year war.

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French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday a decision on whether to carry out military strikes on Syrian chemical weapons’ facilities would be made in the coming days after more consultations with the United States and Britain.

“The third element is the red lines defined by France. These red lines, which are shared by other powers, have nothing to do with the discussions taking place at the U.N. Security Council,” Macron said alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“In this context, we will continue exchanges of technical and strategic information with our partners in particular Britain and America, and in the coming days we will announce our decision.”

He said if there were strikes they would not target the Syrian government’s allies or anybody in particular, but would be aimed at the Syrian government’s chemical facilities.

In anticipation of a potential strike, Syria’s military forces were simultaneously mobilising.

“At midnight, the army command put all military positions on alert, including airports and all bases, for a period of 72 hours,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday.

A source from a pro-regime unit told AFP yesterday there were “precautionary measures being taken by the Syrian army, especially the airports and military bases.”  Even residents of the capital were bracing themselves.