Tribune Washington Bureau

BEIRUT — The U.S. and its allies accused the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad of a poison gas attack Tuesday that killed dozens of people and injured scores more in a northwestern province controlled by rebels — an action which, if confirmed, would mark a startling atrocity even in the blood-soaked history of that country’s civil war.

The attack appeared to involve the use of sarin, a powerful nerve gas, said a U.S. official who was not authorized to be quoted by name discussing the issue.

Some activists and monitoring groups placed the death toll at 70 to 100. Several reported that airstrikes had targeted clinics treating the wounded.

President Donald Trump in a statement called the attack “reprehensible,” and said it “cannot be ignored by the civilized world.”

But he immediately focused blame on his predecessor, saying that the “heinous actions” of the Assad government were a consequence of President Barack Obama’s “weakness and irresolution” when he failed to enforce his own “red line” against chemical attacks in 2013.

At the same time, administration officials made clear that the president and his advisers were not reconsidering their decision, revealed just days ago, to accept Assad’s continued hold on power.

“It’s a political reality,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters when asked about the administration’s willingness to accept Assad’s continued rule.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group with a network of activists in Syria, said medical crews had treated victims of suffocation whose symptoms, including shrunken irises, paleness and spasms, indicated poison gas. The group said medical crews reported that at least 58 people were killed.

Syria officially denied using a chemical weapon, as it did in previous attacks in 2013.

In a statement, the Syrians said that “armed terrorist groups,” as the government labels opposition organizations, had falsely accused the military of using chemical weapons.

“The General Command of the Syrian army and armed forces absolutely denies the use of any chemical or poisonous materials … today, just as it has not and will not use them any place or anywhere, neither in the past nor in the future,” the statement said.

The attack came just days after the Trump administration had walked away from previous U.S. policy that had called for Assad to leave office. That change in U.S. policy, along with the president’s warm comments on Monday to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, had appeared to signal the new administration’s willingness to work with — or at least tolerate — Middle Eastern dictators in its pursuit of other objectives.

The attack underscored the risks inherent in any such policy.

It was not immediately clear how, or whether, the U.S. would respond to the incident. Trump is “extremely alarmed at these revelations” of a chemical attack, Spicer said, adding that the president was consulting with his national security advisers about a response.

But, he added, “there is not a fundamental option of regime change” in Syria.

On that point, at least, the U.S. appeared to be out of step with some allied governments. British Prime Minister Theresa May, in condemning the attack, said “I’m very clear that there can be no future for Assad in a stable Syria which is representative of all the Syrian people.”

The attack and the responses underscored that devising a policy toward Syria is likely to prove no easier for the new administration than it was for the last one.

Obama tried to balance two objectives — pushing Assad from power while simultaneously fighting Islamic State militants, who control parts of Syria and Iraq. He and his aides argued that Assad’s effort to suppress any opposition to his government was driving Syrians, especially those from Sunni Muslim communities, toward alliance with the militants.

But Obama’s efforts were notably unsuccessful. In 2012 he declared that use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government would cross a “red line.” A little more than a year later, he declined to order airstrikes against Assad’s forces despite clear evidence that they had launched a chemical attack on civilians. The incident was one of the most heavily criticized chapters of Obama’s presidency.

Trump, during his presidential campaign and since, has said that the U.S. should focus on the fight against Islamic State and not try to pursue two objectives at once. He has also sought better relations with Russia, which views Assad’s government as a necessary bulwark against escalating instability in the region.

If Tuesday’s attack was a deliberate use of chemical weapons by Assad’s forces, it would undermine Trump’s hopes that a hands-off policy toward Assad might mute the region’s turmoil.

In a statement, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the attack makes “clear that this is how Bashar al-Assad operates: with brutal, unabashed barbarism.”

“Those who defend and support him, including Russia and Iran, should have no illusions about Assad or his intentions. Anyone who uses chemical weapons to attack his own people shows a fundamental disregard for human decency and must be held accountable,” the statement said.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Wednesday to discuss what she called “the terrible chemical weapons attack in Syria.”

Notably, however, the condemnations from both Trump and Tillerson came only in written form. Administration officials avoided on-camera condemnations. Earlier in the day, during a photo session with the visiting King Abdullah II of Jordan, reporters asked Tillerson about the Syrian attack. He walked away without responding.

Some Republicans who opposed Obama for not doing enough militarily to drive Assad out of power have also criticized Trump for appearing to acquiesce to Assad’s hold on power.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who has repeatedly called for a stronger U.S. military effort to oust Assad, said in a statement that “with President Obama’s ‘red line’ far in the rearview mirror, Assad believes he can commit war crimes with impunity.”

“The question that confronts the United States now is whether we will take any action to disabuse him of this murderous notion,” McCain said.

In Syria, doctors said the attack came as a result of an airstrike by warplanes on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the northwestern province of Idlib.

Rami Abdul Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said in a phone interview that his group had spoken to doctors treating casualties in a medical facility, but had not dispatched its own observers to the site of the airstrikes.

Idlib is the primary bastion of Syria’s embattled opposition, and has been the target of frequent attacks by Syrian and Russian warplanes.

Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said in an interview with the Russia Today news channel that Russian warplanes had not conducted any strikes in the area.

Tuesday’s strikes, if confirmed to have been conducted with chemical weapons, would be the deadliest chemical weapons attack since the ones in August 2013 that almost brought on a U.S. airstrike. At that time, the U.S. and Syrian opposition groups accused forces loyal to Assad of lobbing sarin-filled shells at rebel-held enclaves near Damascus. More than 1,000 people were killed, according to U.S. estimates.

In the aftermath, a deal pushed through by Russia saw the government surrender its stockpiles of chemical weapons — including sarin and VX — to the United Nations.