London/Damascus — Western powers have no plans for more missile strikes on Syria but will assess their options if Damascus uses chemical weapons again, Britain’s foreign secretary says as debate rages over the legality and effectiveness of the raids. US, French and British missile attacks struck at the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons programme on Saturday in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack a week ago. The three countries insisted they were not aimed at toppling President Bashar al-Assad or intervening in a seven-year civil war. The bombings, hailed by US President Donald Trump as a success, but denounced by Damascus and its allies as an act of aggression, were the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and his ally, Russia, whose Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called them "unacceptable and lawless". In Damascus Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad met inspectors from the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW for three hours in the presence of...
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