The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned the United States that any intervention in the country’s civil war will end in failure.
He says claims that his regime used chemical weapons last week are an ‘insult to common sense’.
UN inspectors will today visit the scene of the alleged attack – which caused the deaths of over 350 people. But Western leaders say any evidence of chemical weapons used by the Assad regime may have already been destroyed.
Meanwhile, almost 50 people have been killed in a series of attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq.
The bomb and gun attacks targeted mainly Sunni areas of the country – and are seen as a sign that the worst violence since 2008 is yet to subside.
As many as 4-thousand people have been killed in Iraq since the start of 2013 – and there are now concerns that the country is on the brink of an all-out sectarian conflict.
