President Donald Trump gave his official approval Tuesday for Montenegro to join NATO, marking another step forward in the tiny Baltic country’s quest for NATO acceptance.

The White House says Trump looks forward to meeting with Montenegro and other NATO leaders next month in Brussels to welcome the 29th member of the alliance.

The White House statement said Montenegro’s accession will signal other countries seeking to join NATO that “the door to membership in the Euro-Atlantic community of nations remains open and that countries in the Western Balkans are free to choose their own future.”

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly last month to support Montenegro’s NATO bid.

Trump is scheduled to meet Wednesday with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House.

As recently as January, Trump called NATO “obsolete” because it had not defended against terrorist attacks. He also complained other NATO countries are not paying their fair share for defense.

“A lot of these countries are not paying what they are supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States,” Trump told The Times of London.  “With that being said, NATO is very important to me.  There are five countries that are paying what they are supposed to. Five. It is not much.”

Russia has described Montenegro’s NATO membership as a “provocation” due to the country’s geographical proximity to Russia. The Kremlin has long seen the Balkans as inside its “sphere of influence.”
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A refugee camp in northern France burned down Monday night after a massive brawl involving more than 150 migrants broke out between rival groups of Kurds and Afghans, French authorities said.

The fire destroyed most of the Grande-Synthe migrant camp near Dunkirk and the fighting left several people injured, according to the regional prefect, Michel Lalande.

As many as 1,600 migrants were living in the camp at the time of the fire, many of whom lost all the meager possessions they had, Lalande said.

Around 500 migrants were taken to nearby gymnasiums, but the rest are unaccounted for, Lalande and Damien Careme, mayor of Grande-Synthe, told reporters Tuesday.

“There is nothing left but a heap of ashes,” Lalande said. “It will be impossible to put the huts back where they were before.”

Grande-Synthe was set up last year by the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders and housed mostly Kurdish refugees. Its population swelled in October after the notorious Calais refugee camp, located about 25 miles away, was shuttered and destroyed.

A large number of migrants arrived from Afghanistan recently, further increasing the camp population.

Corenne Torre, head of the group’s French operation, told the Associated Press that authorities are scrambling to find the unaccounted-for migrants.

“We just don’t know where they are,” she said, adding that some could be hiding in fear of authorities or fear of rival gangs at the camp.

Investigators are still trying to determine the exact cause of the fire, though Lalande and Careme said authorities believe it was set intentionally as part of Monday night’s brawl.

Torre said 10 migrants went to the hospital with injuries sustained during the fire. At least six migrants were wounded during the brawl, three of whom suffered stab wounds. Another migrant was left in critical condition after being hit by a car outside the camp.

Riot police intervened in the brawl, which led to further fighting between migrants and authorities.

Migrants have gathered for decades along the coast in northern France, with hopes of reaching Britain.

The Grande-Synthe camp has seen several violent incidents in recent months, with the most recent coming last week when migrants tried to block traffic and climb onto vehicles on a nearby highway.
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Two world champions are among seven Russian athletes who were approved by track and field’s governing body on Tuesday to compete internationally while their country remains banned for doping.

The IAAF so far has approved 10 Russians this year to compete as neutrals.

The new list includes 110-meter hurdler Sergei Shubenkov and high jumper Maria Kuchina. Both won gold medals at the 2015 world championships in Beijing and could now defend their titles in London in August.

Russia was banned from the track at last year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but two athletes had been approved to compete: middle-distance runner Yulia Stepanova, a key whistleblower of Russia’s doping program, and long jumper Darya Klishina, the only Russian who took part on the track in Rio.

To be approved, athletes must show an IAAF doping review panel they have been adequately tested for drugs over a lengthy period by non-Russian agencies.

However, the IAAF said the athletes are still “subject to acceptance of their entries by individual meeting organizers,” such as the Diamond League series. The 14-meet circuit opens on May 5 in Doha, Qatar.

Shubenkov is set to be in demand as the reigning world champion, worlds bronze medalist in 2013 and two-time European champion.

Shubenkov and Kuchina, a past world and European indoor champion, were unable to compete at the world indoors in Serbia last month while their cases were under review.

“There can be no time constraints on a process which has been established to safeguard the rights and aspirations of the world’s clean athletes and is about rebuilding confidence in competition,” IAAF President Sebastian Coe said in a statement.

Kuchina is set to compete as Maria Lasitskene after getting married.

The IAAF said the other approved athletes are: high jumper Daniil Tsyplakov, who placed fifth at the 2015 worlds, pole vaulters Illia Mudrov and Olga Mullina, and race walkers Sergey Shirobokov and Yana Smerdova.

The IAAF previously cleared three Russians to compete as neutrals – pole vaulter Anzhelika Sidorova, sprinter Kristina Sivakova and hammer thrower Alexei Sokirsky.

The names of 17 athletes whose applications were rejected this year by the review panel have not been published, the IAAF said, adding it had received about 100 applications. Only 38 of those were endorsed by the Russian track federation, which remains suspended by the IAAF.
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God comes first in this mountaintop village on Turkey’s Black Sea, the saying goes. Then, according to adoring villagers, comes local boy Recep Tayyip Erdogan, today one of the most transformational, polarizing figures in modern Turkish history.

Nestled among tea plantations, the village of Dumankaya in the rugged province of Rize oozes the fervent loyalty that has propelled Erdogan, 63, to one electoral triumph after another since he took power as prime minister in 2003.

Now the Turkish president is hoping that pious Muslim bedrocks of support like Dumankaya will help deliver him another win, this time in Turkey’s April 16 referendum. The vote could extend Erdogan’s rule for many years and, in his opponents’ view, further erode Turkey’s challenged democracy.

For many Turks, Sunday’s vote on whether to expand the powers of the Turkish presidency is not a dry constitutional matter. For people on both sides of the political divide, it’s all about the outsized ambitions of one man, Erdogan.

Fisherman Birol Bahtiyar, wearing a cap emblazoned with a “Yes” slogan, dismissed suggestions by opponents that the referendum was a power-grab by Erdogan or that he was leading Turkey into a one-man regime.

“In the past 14 years, Turkey stepped into a new age,” said the 49-year-old as he and his friends fixed their nets at Rize’s harbor. “I will vote yes because I trust him. There is no such thing as a one-man rule. We still have an assembly, a parliament. We have confidence [in the proposed system].”

The constitutional amendments would shift Turkey’s system from a parliamentary to a presidential system, in one of the most radical political changes since the Turkish republic was established in 1923. Opponents fear that the changes will give the president near-absolute powers with little oversight, turning the NATO country that once vied for European Union membership into an authoritarian state.

For ‘the people’

But for the socially conservative and pious residents of Rize, such arguments ring hollow. To them, the region’s most famous son is a reformist leader who has brought unprecedented economic growth and prosperity to Turkey and provided improved health care, education and large infrastructure projects.

In Erdogan — whose parents and siblings were born in Dumankaya (Smoky Rock in English for the fog that frequently hangs over it) — they see a local who has given a greater voice to the pious — who felt marginalized under previous governments, which enforced secular laws barring Islamic headscarves in schools and public offices.

They believe Erdogan — who has ruled Turkey for over a decade, first as prime minister and as president since 2014 — is a strong leader who has provided political stability, ending the political squabbles that plagued Turkey in the 1990s.

Voters in Rize have backed Erdogan by a wide margin in a long string of election victories and promise to do so again on April 16. They support his ambition to turn Turkey into one of the world’s top powers by 2023, when the country marks its centenary.

Mehmet Celik, a Dumankaya resident, sees the president as a larger-than-life trail-blazer and fighter against Turkey’s perceived enemies.

“For us, God comes first. Then comes Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” said Celik. “He supports the people and the people support him.”

Two sides to coup

Celik believes Erdogan rescued Turkey from last summer’s failed coup and feels that a strong presidency would protect Turkey from greater calamity. Turkey has blamed the coup on the followers of the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a charge Gulen has denied.

“They [the Gulenists] would have ruined us. If we had fallen into their hands, we would have been destroyed. Why would we not vote ‘Yes?”‘ Celik said. “If our president did not exist, we would have been in a miserable state.”

But critics say Erdogan has used the coup attempt to purge his critics. More than 150,000 people have been taken into custody, fired or forced to retire from Turkey’s armed forces, judiciary, education system and other public institutions since the coup attempt.

Ismail Erdogan, a cousin of Erdogan and the chief administrator of Dumankaya, points at a long list of projects either launched or completed under Erdogan’s rule, including a major coastal highway, the Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, a hospital.

“He brought infrastructure, natural gas. He is bringing an airport. We had never seen such things. He brought a giant hospital,” Ismail Erdogan said, describing his cousin as a serious child who liked to talk about soccer and commanded respect even at an early age.

Speaking in a recently renovated local government building in Dumankaya, Ismail Erdogan also praised his cousin for standing up to Europe, following a dispute last month over restrictions imposed by the Netherlands and Germany on Turkish ministers holding referendum campaigns there.

“Let’s not [join] the European Union, we don’t need it,” Ismail Erdogan said. “We are self-sufficient.”

Erdogan campaigned in Rize recently to court the votes of his fellow townsmen, symbolically launching the start of construction for an airport that will serve Rize and the neighboring province of Artvin. In a speech laced with nationalist and anti-European rhetoric, Erdogan also promised that the construction of mountain tunnel pass would soon be finished.

Among the crowd of adoring supporters — waving flags and banners emblazoned with the word “Yes” — was 22-year-old religious studies student Leyla Erdeniz. Her affection for Erdogan runs so deep that she moved to Rize to study at the university named after him.

“A ‘Yes’ result will be very beneficial to our country,” the university student said. “There will be no trace left of the old Turkey.”
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The Trump administration must decide by the end of this month whether to grant Belarus continued relief from U.S. economic sanctions despite a stiff government crackdown on street demonstrations last month.

The renewal decision is considered a low-level priority for the administration, which is facing bigger questions about U.S. relations with Russia and China, and with most major diplomatic positions still unfilled.

But whether the United States renews the sanctions relief or instead returns to blacklisting nine major Belarus companies is an early test for the Trump administration on the importance it puts on human rights versus efforts to coax countries in Russia’s orbit to turn to the West.

The sanctions waivers, which began in 2015 and were extended twice last year, were tied to domestic political reforms and intended to encourage Belarus, which has long historical ties to Russia, to move closer to the European Union and the United States.

Now, however, U.S. officials are alarmed by the arrests of hundreds of people last month during an attempt to hold a street protest in the capital Minsk, and concerned if continuing sanctions relief could be seen as ignoring the crackdown.

Belarus authorities last month raided a human rights group’s offices and used violence against peaceful protesters, rights groups say.

“This most recent crackdown sharpened people’s focus,” said a U.S. congressional aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Now there is a real question about whether or not they [the sanctions] should be reimposed.”

April deadline

The decision must be taken by the end of April. If the administration makes no decision, the sanctions will be reimposed.

NATO members, including Poland and the Baltic states, feel threatened by what they see as increased Russian intervention in Europe, including Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

“Belarus is so important from a strategic point of view and it’s so dependent economically on Russia that we are really very concerned,” said Piotr Wilczek, the Polish ambassador to the United States. “Belarus is becoming more and more part of this wider Russian problem we have.”

The Trump administration is inclined to renew the sanctions relief, but likely would wait until the last minute “to make sure they don’t do anything awful,” said a U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

State and Treasury Department officials declined to comment in detail on the Belarus sanctions. The Belarus Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment.

President George W. Bush in 2006 blacklisted top Belarus officials, including President Alexander Lukashenko, for undermining the country’s democratic processes or human rights abuses. The United States later added large Belarus companies to the sanctions list.

But in 2015, Lukashenko released political prisoners and indicated he was open to better relations with the West. That October, President Barack Obama temporarily lifted sanctions on nine Belarus companies, including petrochemical conglomerate Belneftekhim and tire manufacturer Belshina.

Now, however, Lukashenko appears to be keeping his country firmly in Moscow’s orbit. In a letter to him last week, four U.S. senators said they were concerned over the crackdown and that he decided to allow Russia to conduct “provocative” military exercises in Belarus later this year.
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Hungary’s right-wing president has signed controversial legislation on foreign universities that critics warn could force the closure of a top international institution founded by U.S. financier George Soros.

The approval Monday by President Janos Ader came less than a day after tens of thousands of protesters rallied in central Budapest against the legislation, which is seen as targeting Central European University.

Soros founded CEU — an English-language institution of about 1,400 students from more than 100 countries — in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union. At that time, the financier’s move was widely hailed as helping Hungary transition from decades of communism to democracy by providing exposure to democratic ideals.

The legislation signed Monday requires all 28 foreign universities operating in Hungary to have campuses in their home countries, as well. Critics have for months pointed out that CEU is the only university among the 28 with no overseas branch, fueling widespread fears the law aims to deny young people access to the Western-leaning CEU and its pro-democracy curriculum.

The new law further bars colleges and universities based outside the European Union from awarding Hungarian diplomas without the consent of the respective governments.

Without such consent, the law will ban the university from enrolling new students after Jan. 1, 2018, and force it to close in 2021.

State media quoted the president Monday as insisting the new law “does not infringe [on] freedom of learning or of teaching” enshrined in Hungary’s constitution.

However, last week the U.S. embassy in Budapest issued a statement critical of the legislation, while accusing lawmakers who backed it of targeting the Soros-founded university. Embassy Charge d’ Affaires David Kostelancik also said that Washington will continue to advocate for CEU’s “unhindered operation in Hungary.”

Prime minister viewed harshly in West 

Right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose ruling Fidesz party crafted the legislation, is viewed in much of Europe and beyond as an autocrat and a xenophobe who has long viewed the liberal internationalist Soros as an ideological foe.

Orban is an outspoken critic of EU migration policy and has loudly criticized sanctions against Russia that were imposed by the EU and the United States after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

The online U.S. publication Politico described him in 2015 as “Europe’s new dictator.”

Last October, thousands of demonstrators marched in Budapest to protest the sudden closure of the country’s largest-selling opposition newspaper, Nepszabadsag. 

Those protests also targeted Orban, who has long been accused of stifling press freedoms and isolating private media outlets critical of his controversial anti-migrant stance.

The newspaper’s shutdown came just weeks after it published reports alleging widespread corruption within Orban’s ruling party, including close allies of the prime minister.
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Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven major industrialized nations meet on Monday for an annual gathering, with Europe and Japan seeking clarity

from the United States on an array of issues, especially Syria.

The two-day summit in Tuscany comes as the United States moves a Navy strike group near the Korean peninsula amid concerns over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and as the West’s relations with Russia struggle to overcome years of mistrust.

But the civil war in Syria is likely to dominate talks, with Italy hoping for a final communique that will reinforce United Nations’ efforts to end six years of conflict.

The meeting will give Italy, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Japan their first chance to grill the new U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on whether Washington is now committed to overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Mixes messages

President Donald Trump had hinted he would be less interventionist than his predecessors and more willing to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses if it was in U.S. interests.

Given this, the U.S. attack on Syria last week in retaliation for what it said was a chemical weapons attack by Assad’s forces on Syrian civilians confounded many diplomats.

However, there is uncertainty over whether Washington now wants Assad out, as many Europeans are pushing for, or whether the missile strikes were simply a warning shot.

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said over the weekend that regime change in Syria was a priority for Trump, while Tillerson said on Saturday the first priority was the defeat of Islamic State.

The mixed messages have confused and frustrated European allies, who are eager for full U.S. support for a political solution based on a transfer of power in Damascus.

“The Americans say they agree, but there’s nothing to show for it behind (the scenes). They are absent from this and are navigating aimlessly in the dark,” said a senior European diplomat, who declined to be named.

Libyan worries

The foreign ministers’ discussions will prepare the way for a leaders’ summit in Sicily at the end of May.

Efforts to reach an agreement on statements and strategy ahead of time – a normal part of pre-meeting G-7 diplomacy – has gone very slowly, partly because of a difficult transition at the U.S. state department, where many key positions remain unfilled.

Some issues, such as trade and climate change, are likely to be ducked in Tuscany. “The more complicated subjects will be left to the leaders,” said an Italian diplomat, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

However, the foreign ministers will talk about Libya.

Italy is hoping for vocal support for a United Nations-backed government in Tripoli, that has struggled to exert its influence in the city, let alone in the rest of the violence-plagued north African country.

The Trump administration has not yet defined a clear policy and Rome fears Washington may fall into step with Egypt, which supports general Khalifa Haftar, who operates in eastern Libya.

The struggle against terrorism, relations with Iran and on-going instability in Ukraine will also come up for discussion, with talks due to kick off at 4.30 p.m. (1430 GMT).
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Swedish authorities have arrested second person in connection with Friday’s truck attack in Stockholm that killed four people and wounded 15 others.

There were no immediate details about the additional suspect and how that person is connected to the 39-year-old Uzbek national suspected of ramming a stolen truck into an upscale shopping hub

The suspected terrorist was previously known to Swedish intelligence services, but authorities say he was not a part of any ongoing investigations.

“Nothing indicates we have the wrong person,” said the head of Sweden’s national police, Dan Eliasson, in comments to reporters Saturday. “On the contrary, suspicions have strengthened as the investigation has progressed.”

Photos taken at the scene Friday showed the vehicle was a truck belonging to beer maker Spendrups, which said its truck had been hijacked earlier in the day.

Witnesses say the truck drove straight into the entrance of the Ahlens Department Store on Drottninggatan, the city’s biggest pedestrian street, sending shoppers screaming and running. Television footage showed smoke coming out of the store after the crash.

Following the attack, Stockholm’s central train station was evacuated and nearby buildings were locked down for hours. Police say they have increased security at the country’s borders.

Sweden’s King Carl Gustaf expressed his condolences for the victims and their families in a brief statement.

“We follow developments but as of now our thoughts go to the victims and their families,” he said. The king cut short a visit to Brazil on Friday to return home.

A number of European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and London’s mayor, Saddiq Khan, have released statements indicating their solidarity with Sweden.

“One of Europe’s most vibrant and colorful cities appears to have been struck by those wishing it — and our very way of life — harm,” said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

French President Francois Hollande voiced his “horror and indignation” over the assault. Paris’ Eiffel Tower went dark for five minutes Friday to honor the victims of the attack.

The U.S. State Department also condemned the attack, adding, “Attacks like this are intended to sow the seeds of fear, but in fact they only strengthen our shared resolve to combat terrorism around the world.”
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Tens of thousands of Swedes turned out in Stockholm Sunday for what they called a “lovefest” after Friday’s terrorist truck attack killed four people and injured 15.

A 39-year-old Uzbek believed to have extremist sympathies is under arrest for allegedly ramming a stolen truck into a crowd at the Ahlens department store.

“Fear shall not reign. Terror cannot win,” Mayor Karin Wanngard told a crowd estimated at 50,000.

One woman held a poster reading: “We don’t respond with fear, we respond with love.”

Friday’s attack apparently had little effect on liberal Sweden’s global reputation as an open and welcoming society.

One participant at Sunday’s rally told the Associated Press that the fact the suspect is a refugee means nothing.

“This is a sick individual and has nothing to do with his refugee status. I think most Stockholmians realize that just because you are a refugee or a Muslim doesn’t mean you are a terrorist.”

Police arrested the Uzbek-born suspect hours after the truck attack. He was known to intelligence services since last year when he disappeared before he could be deported after his application for asylum was rejected. Authorities knew he had pro-extremist sympathies.

But no group has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack and no motive is known.

Police say they have arrested a second person in connection with the attack, but have given no further information.

Photos taken at the scene Friday showed the vehicle was a truck belonging to beer maker Spendrups, which said its truck had been hijacked earlier in the day.

Witnesses say the truck drove straight into the entrance of the Ahlens Department Store on Drottninggatan, the city’s biggest pedestrian street, sending shoppers screaming and running. Television footage showed smoke coming out of the store after the crash.
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Pope Francis, who is scheduled to visit Egypt later this month, decried Sunday’s blast at a Coptic Church in Egypt’s Nile Delta that killed 21 worshippers and wounded dozens more.

At the end of his Palm Sunday Mass, the leader of the world’s Roman Catholic Church said, ” I pray for the dead and the victims. May the Lord convert the hearts of people who sow terror, violence and death and even the hearts of those who produce and traffic in weapons.”

Earlier, in his homily, Francis denounced the suffering in the world today.

He said those who ” . . . suffer from slave labor, from family tragedies, from diseases . . . They suffer from wars and terrorism, from interests that are armed and ready to strike.”

Before the beginning of the Mass, Francis and a group of cardinals, holding elaborately braided palm fronds, walked through the crowd at Saint Peter’s Square.

In Jerusalem, worshippers at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher celebrated Palm Sunday by waving palm branches during the procession next to the newly restored Tomb of Jesus.

The church in Jerusalem’s Old City is believed to be the burial site of Jesus.

Palm Sunday marks Jesus’ triumphant entry in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago and the beginning of the Christian Easter Holy Week.

 
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Norwegian police set off a controlled explosion of a “bomblike device” found in central Oslo Saturday, a suspect is being held in custody, and the security police are investigating, authorities said.

A Reuters reporter described a loud bang shortly after the arrival of Oslo’s bomb squad.

“The noise from the blast was louder than our explosives themselves would cause,” a police spokesman said, while adding that further investigation would be conducted at the scene.

The device had appeared to be capable of causing only a limited amount of damage, the police said earlier.

Police declined to give information about the suspect.

Norway’s police security service said in a tweet it had taken over the investigation from local police.

Oslo’s Groenland area, a multi-ethnic neighborhood that is home to popular bars and restaurants as well as several mosques, is also where the city’s main police station is located, less than a kilometer from where the device was found.

In neighboring Sweden, a truck Friday plowed into crowds in Stockholm, killing four people and wounding 15 in what police said was an apparent terror attack.

In 2011, right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik set off a car bomb in Oslo that killed eight people and destroyed Norway’s government headquarters, before going on a shooting rampage that killed 69 people at nearby Utoeya island.
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Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, canceled plans Saturday to visit Moscow, just hours before he was due to depart London, as tensions escalated between the U.S. and Russia over Syria.

Russian leaders, who have dubbed as illegal the U.S. action to punish the government of President Bashar al-Assad for its use of chemical weapons, ramped up the war of words late Friday when the country’s prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, warned America was “one step away from military clashes with Russia.”

In an apparent show of force, a Russian frigate armed with cruise missiles, reportedly was heading into the Mediterranean. According to Russian state media, the ship, the Admiral Grigorovich, will dock at Tartus on the Syrian coast.

Russia also has pledged to bolster Syria’s air defenses.

News of the cancelation of the British foreign minister’s trip was relayed first by Johnson himself, who tweeted: “I will now not travel to Moscow on Monday 10 April.” He said his priority was to hold talks with Western allies about Syria and Russia’s support for Assad.

British officials say that Johnson’s trip was called off after the British foreign minister consulted his American counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who himself is due to visit the Russian capital in a few days.

They said Johnson wants to spearhead efforts to help shape a “coalition of support” against Russian activity in Syria. In a statement later, Johnson said, “Developments in Syria have changed the situation fundamentally.”

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman described the cancelation as “absurd.”

Johnson was due to hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and the two diplomats were expected to hold a joint news conference.

“It seems that our Western colleagues live in their own kind of reality in which they first try to single-handedly make collective plans, then they single-handedly try to change them, coming up with absurd reasons,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a statement.

“Unfortunately, stability, and consistency have long stopped being the hallmark of Western foreign policy,” she added.

As the diplomatic turmoil unfolded, activists Saturday claimed Syrian government warplanes had again struck Khan Sheikhoun, the rebel-held town targeted earlier in the week in an alleged chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the London-based pro-opposition watchdog that gathers information from activists on the ground, claimed a woman was killed and three people wounded after being machine-gunned by jets in an eastern neighborhood.

The warplanes carrying out Saturday’s alleged raid are believed to have flown from al-Shayrat, the airbase targeted Thursday by the U.S. in a punitive barrage of 59 Cruise missiles strike, the greatest show of America firepower in more than a decade. Tuesday’s chemical attack left scores dead, including children and women, according activists. U.S. officials so far have not commented on the claimed raid. In addition, there was no confirmation by other monitors.

There also was an unconfirmed report of a U.S.-led raid against the Islamic State in the countryside around Raqqa, the terror group’s de facto capital in Syria. The observatory quoted local activists as saying missiles struck the village of Hanida, to the west of the city.

 
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Officials say the top US diplomat will urge Russia to rethink its continued support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. More from Nike Ching.
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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson heads to Moscow on April 12, just days after the United States launched missile strikes on a Syrian airbase in response to a Syrian chemical weapons attack that killed civilians.

Officials say the top U.S. diplomat will urge Russia to rethink its continued support for the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, said on Saturday he had canceled a visit to Moscow that was scheduled for April 10. “Developments in Syria have changed the situation fundamentally,” said Johnson in a statement.

Secretary of State Tillerson is scheduled to travel to Moscow on Wednesday, after he attends the G-7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Italy from April 9 to 11.

The State Department did not respond to VOA’s inquiry on whether Tillerson’s Moscow trip has been changed or canceled since the U.S. military strikes.  

Analysts say Washington needs the diplomatic follow-up, though, after the military action.

The top U.S. diplomat, known as a man of few words, had harsh comments for Russia, which Washington blamed for failing to rein in its ally, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

“Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent,” said Tillerson on Thursday night. He was referring to the Kremlin’s failure to prevent the Assad government from allegedly conducting a poison gas attack that killed scores of people in rebel-held Idlib province.

In 2013, the Syrian government agreed to surrender its chemical weapons under the supervision of the Russia government. Prior to the recent gas attack, Tillerson said Assad’s future would be decided by the Syrian people. After the attack, he took aim at Assad’s government and Russia’s support for him.

Experts said the U.S. military strike could complicate Tillerson’s diplomatic mission to Moscow, and that an escalation of tensions between the U.S. and Russia over the future of Assad also is possible. 

“For sure this means further immediate bumps in the bilateral relationship,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told VOA.

He said despite the fact that the missile strikes were quite limited and Washington had warned Moscow ahead of time so that Russian soldiers would not be in danger, Moscow’s reaction was rather strong.

Herbst, now director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, said Russia’s decision to suspend the de-confliction mechanism, which is intended to avoid accidents, was not well considered.

“While de-confliction serves the interest of both U.S. and Russian, it is more important to Moscow” because U.S. conventional forces are far superior and “Russian forces are more at risk in case of an incident,” said Herbst.

“The strikes undoubtedly change the tone of the conversation, given the de-confliction protocols, between Russia and the U.S. have been suspended in Syria,” Michael Kofman from Center for Naval Analyses told VOA.

Professor Doga Ulas Eralp of American University in Washington told VOA on Friday that Tillerson “now has to scramble to broker a deal” that would allow a sustainable coordination mechanism between the two countries “if the U.S. is determined to escalate its military engagement in Syria.”

Middle East Institute scholar Daniel Serwer told VOA the military strikes “shoot the Syria agenda item to the top.” The key question is whether Tillerson can get something going with the Russians on a political solution in Syria,” he added.

Former U.S. officials say the Syrian chemical attack is a major challenge to the nascent relationship between the Trump administration and the Kremlin.

“It is vital that the U.S. corrects course and that the current administration moves quickly from a set of alarming and ignorant comments to having a real policy and strategy for managing and mitigating Putin’s negative impacts on world peace and security,” said former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Daniel Baer.

Alexei Arbatov, director of the Center of International Security at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow, told VOA’s Russian service that while the U.S. missile strike in Syria complicates U.S.-Russian relations, “the reaction of the Russian Foreign Ministry thus far has been quite restrained, and it is not rejecting the possibility of agreements and cooperation with the United States.”

While Washington is willing to work with Moscow in areas of practical cooperation, the State Department said Secretary Tillerson will make it clear the U.S. is committed to holding Russia accountable when international norms are violated.

 
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