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Syria
• The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has said Iran will apply all efforts to prevent military action against the Tehran-backed regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Iranian state TV is reporting. His remarks reportedly came during a telephone conversation between Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Rouhani was quoted as saying “military action will have a big amount of costs for the region” and “it is necessary to apply all efforts to prevent it.” According to the report, he said both Iran and Russia would work to prevent any military action against Syria and called such action an “open violation” of international laws. While condemning chemical weapons, Rouhani was quoted as saying “early judgment can be dangerous, before clarification” of allegations that Syria used such weapons.

• The US president, Barack Obama, said in an interview with PBS television, that he has not taken a final decision on air strikes but Syria needed to understand there were “international consequences” for its actions. He said the White House had concluded that Syria did carry out last week’s chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs, adding:

If in fact we make a choice to have repercussions for the use of chemical weapons, then the Assad regime will have received a pretty strong signal that in fact it had better not do it again.

• Despite Obama’s comments, the intelligence linking President Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed at least 100 people is no “slam dunk,” with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria’s chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, US intelligence officials have told AP. Multiple US officials used the phrase “not a slam dunk” to describe the intelligence picture — a reference to then-CIA Director George Tenet’s insistence in 2002 that US intelligence showing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was a “slam dunk” — intelligence that turned out to be wrong.

• Allied air strikes against the Syrian government over the alleged use of chemical weapons could be delayed until next week in the face of strong opposition in the UK parliament to British involvement in immediate military action. The prime minister, David Cameron, conceded that MPs would be given a second vote to approve military action to defuse a parliamentary revolt, ahead of a Commons debate on Syria today. Whitehall sources indicated that the US, which had planned to launch the strikes by the weekend, is prepared to revive a back-up plan to delay the strikes until Tuesday when Barack Obama is due to set out for the G20 summit in Russia.

• Syria is warning of “grave consequences” if US-led military action goes ahead to punish President Assad for allegedly using chemical weapons. Bashar al-Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to the UN, told reporters outside the security council in New York on Wednesday that the effect could be felt across the Middle East. “We should keep in mind what happened in Iraq and Libya”, the envoy said, adding that the toppling of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi by Nato-backed rebels in 2011 had “spread terrorists all over Africa”.

• The Syrian air force is considering using kamikaze pilots against attacks by western forces, a Syrian army officer operating air defences near Damascus has claimed in an interview with the Guardian. The officer said 13 pilots had signed a pledge this week saying they would form “a crew of suicide martyrs to foil the US warplanes”.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/aug/29/barack-obama-action-syria-video

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/strike-assad-regime-british

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/syria-west-military-action

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/syrian-army-kamikaze-against-west-assad