Syria says US using 'lies, fabrications' to attack it

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has censured US President Donald Trump's latest threat of a looming missile attack against Syria, accusing Washington of using "lies and fabrications" like the recent alleged chemical attack near Damascus to wage war against the Arab country.

"It has become known to all that the chemical weapons pretext is an unsubstantiated flimsy argument to target Syria," an unnamed Syrian official was quoted as saying by Syria's state news agency SANA on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Trump posted a fiery tweet in which he warned Russia, one of Syria's key supporters in the war against foreign-backed militancy, that it should get prepared to "shoot down" missiles that the US military would soon rain down over Syrian targets.

"This reckless escalation by the US is not a surprise as it comes from a country that has sponsored and is still sponsoring terrorism in Syria," the Syrian foreign ministry official said.

The US and its Western allies insist that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad carried out a gas attack against its own people in the Syrian town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta, late on Saturday.

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Reports suggest American jets are patrolling the skies above Syria as the threat of military action over an alleged chemical attack looms large.

Syria has firmly denied any links to the attack, which reportedly killed at least 60 people and wounded more than 1,000 others.

Dismissing the US claims as "unsubstantiated," the Syrian official said it was no surprise that the US was defending Eastern Ghouta terrorists by making up false stories that it would then use to attack Syria.

The foreign ministry official also accused the US and its allies of trying to stop Damascus' recent victories in the Eastern Ghouta region and said the ongoing US-led aerial campaign against purported terrorist positions in Syria had been basically turned into an "air force for Daesh."

Pilots partaking in the campaign, which began in 2014, have on several occasions conducted deadly attacks against Syrian people and military forces.

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There are rising threats of military action by the US and its allies against Syria, amid media reports of a US destroyer deployed within striking range of Russia naval base in Tartus.

The Syrian official asserted that nothing Washington and its allies do will stop Syria's fight against terrorism.

He blasted Trump's threat as an indication that the US has no principles and lacks any sense of logic.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry sent an official invitation to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to send a fact-finding mission to Douma and investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons there.

Syria finished destroying its arsenal of chemical weapons in 2014, under supervision from the OPCW.

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