In some of the most aggressive language used yet by the administration Mr. Kerry accused the Syrian government of the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians and of cynical efforts to cover up its responsibility for a cowardly crime.
Mr. Kerry s remarks at the State Department reinforced the administration s toughening stance on the Syria conflict which is now well into its third year and indicated that the White House was moving closer to a military response in consultation with America s allies.
Administration officials said that although President Obama had not made a final decision on military action he was likely to order a limited military operation cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea at military targets in Syria for example and not a sustained air campaign intended to topple Bashar al Assad the Syrian president or to fundamentally alter the nature of the conflict on the ground.
In the coming days officials said the nation s intelligence agencies will disclose information to bolster their case that chemical weapons were used by Mr. Assad s forces. The information could include so called signals intelligence intercepted radio or telephone calls between Syrian military commanders.
Officials said it was conceivable that military action could still be averted by a dramatic turnabout on the part of the Assad government or by the Russian government that has been supporting it. But they said there were few expectations that this would happen.
Although the United States was consulting with allies administration officials said they had largely abandoned hopes of obtaining any authorization for action in the United Nations Security Council given the all but certain veto from Russia.
In a move that reflected its differences with the Kremlin over a possible American led military operation against Syria the Obama administration has decided to postpone a coming meeting with the Russians on the crisis. A Russian delegation had been scheduled to meet this week in The Hague with Wendy R. Sherman the under secretary of state for political Affairs and Robert S. Ford the senior American envoy to the Syrian opposition to discuss plans for a peace conference to end the fighting in Syria.
A senior State Department official said Monday night that the session would be postponed because of the administration s ongoing consultations about the appropriate response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria.
Other signs of Western momentum toward a military response also took shape on Monday. Britain s prime minister David Cameron cut short a vacation to deal with Syria and the foreign ministers of Britain and Turkey suggested that bypassing the United Nations Security Council was an option. France s foreign minister Laurent Fabius said inaction was unacceptable.
The only option I do not envisage is to do nothing Mr. Fabius told Europe 1 a French radio station. France has been a close ally of the rebels seeking Mr. Assad s ouster in the country s civil war.
News media in Cyprus where Britain maintains a military air base that is less than 100 miles from Syria s coast reported stepped up flights there in recent days although such activity may not have been unusual.
Mr. Kerry spoke hours after United Nations inspectors were finally allowed access to one of the attack sites despite shooting from unidentified snipers that disabled their convoy s lead vehicle. The inspectors still managed to visit two hospitals interview witnesses and doctors and collect patient samples for the first time since the attack last week that claimed hundreds of lives.
Reporting was contributed by Ben Hubbard from Beirut Lebanon Rick Gladstone from New York Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem Alan Cowell from London Andrew Roth and Noah Sneider from Moscow and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul.
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