One week ago today there was an alleged chemical attack in Syria that killed over 1,300 civilians, outside the capital of Damascus. If you don’t remember, or you’ve been hiding in a cave for the past week, here’s the shocking footage that was released showing the aftermath. Warning – it’s not pretty.

These alleged attacks have been called a “moral obscenity” by US secretary of state, John Kerry, and president Obama has ordered the release of a document justifying a military strike against Syrian military installations. The UN are currently in Syria gathering soil and blood samples while dodging sniper bullets, but they have yet to provide hard evidence of the horrific chemical attack. The US have been debating whether or not it’s worth waiting for the UN’s confirmation, but now they claim to have intercepted phone calls which incriminate the Syrian government.

According to a report in Foreign Policy, US intelligence agents intercepted “panicked” phone calls between Syrian officials at the Syrian Ministry of Defence and the leaders of a Syrian chemical weapons unit. The calls, along with the video footage, are the principal pieces of evidence that the US is using to build a case against the Syrian government.

The US does not intend to over-throw Assad, the president of Syria, but instead “deter and degrade” his forces by attacking the military units with Tomahawk cruise missiles. They will not strike the chemical weapons storage sites. If they did, they would risk an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe and could open up the sites to raids by militants, officials said.

[Source : Gawker, Foreign Policy]