SYRIA DEFIANT AS U.S. ALLIES LAY GROUND FOR STRIKE

[Further support for military strikes on Syrian targets appeared to come from the Arab League of nations Tuesday. The league "demands that all those involved in this heinous crime be presented for international trials," according to the statement. The league urged its member states and the international community to issue the necessary "resolutions against the perpetrators of this crime, for which the Syrian regime bears responsibility, and to put an end to the violations and crimes of genocide that the Syrian regime has carried out for over two years."]

Arab League Says Regime Used Chemical Weapons

By  Maria Abi-Habib And Sam Dagher

Syria vowed to defend itself against any foreign attack, while the Arab League said that
Damascus had used chemical weapons against its population. Meg Coker reports.
Photo: AP.

DAMASCUS — The Arab League said Tuesday that Damascus had used chemical weapons against its population, providing the support Washington seeks ahead of military operations, just hours after Syria's foreign minister vowed that his country would defend itself against any foreign attack.

French and U.K. military officials held talks with their American counterparts about coordinating their response to alleged chemical attacks last week near Damascus that activists and rebels said left more than 1,000 Syrians dead.

The U.S. Defense Department has presented military options to President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said, without outlining them. Defense officials have said the U.S. is considering cruise-missile strikes from navy ships in the Mediterranean.

"We are ready to go," he said.

France's President François Hollande vowed Tuesday to "punish" the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for what he said was its likely use of chemical weapons in recent attacks near Damascus.

Mr. Hollande, addressing ambassadors at the Élysée Palace, pressed his case for the West to respond to the attack with "necessary force" targeting the Assad regime.

"This mass chemical massacre cannot go unanswered," he said. "France is ready to punish those who made the infamous decision to gas innocents."

The U.S. is currently examining ways to attack Syria without the approval of the United Nations, where Russia would likely veto any military action, U.S. and European officials have said. The Obama administration has recently stepped up contacts with North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Arab League allies about supporting a military operation against Damascus.

Further support for military strikes on Syrian targets appeared to come from the Arab League of nations Tuesday. The league "demands that all those involved in this heinous crime be presented for international trials," according to the statement. The league urged its member states and the international community to issue the necessary "resolutions against the perpetrators of this crime, for which the Syrian regime bears responsibility, and to put an end to the violations and crimes of genocide that the Syrian regime has carried out for over two years."

The statement came a day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said there was undeniable evidence that chemical weapons had been used in an attack he characterized as a "moral obscenity."

U.S. officials have said they expect to release evidence in coming days that Syria's regime was behind the attacks.

Syria "utterly and completely" rejects the allegations that it used chemical weapons, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Tuesday. He added that Syria would defend itself by means available. "We will surprise others" planning to attack Damascus, he said.

"We are hearing the drums of war," Mr. Moallem added. "They want to attack Syria. I believe to use chemical weapons as a pretext is trite and inaccurate."

Syria's foreign minister condemned the U.S. for flouting international law and ignoring a continuing U.N. investigation into the incident, which has yet to determine if chemical weapons were used.

A U.N. team is currently in Damascus investigating the suspected chemical-weapons attacks that hit several towns on the capital's outskirts last week, whose victims included children and women, according to witnesses. On Monday, the U.N. was granted access to one of those sites, Mouadhamiya, to conduct interviews with survivors and take soil samples, although their convoy was fired on by unknown snipers earlier that day.

U.N. Inspectors in Syria

A second trip planned by the U.N. team was canceled Tuesday after a disagreement by rebels over how to provide security to the international inspectors, the foreign minister said. The U.N. said in a statement that its team decided to postpone its visit by one day "in order to improve preparedness and safety for the team," but didn't speak to Mr. Moallem's claims.

On Tuesday, Mr. Hagel said the U.S. and its key allies have concluded that Syria used chemical weapons last week. "Syria used chemical weapons against its own people," Mr. Hagel told the British Broadcasting Corp. in an interview. "I think most of our allies, most of our partners…have little doubt that the most base, human, international humanitarian standard was violated in using chemical weapons against their own people," said Mr. Hagel, who is in Brunei for meetings with Asian ministers of defense.

"The deeper we get into this, it seems to me it's clearer and clearer that the government of Syria was responsible," Mr. Hagel said. "But we'll wait and determine what the intelligence and the facts bear out."

In calls Tuesday to U.K. Secretary of State for Defense Phillip Hammond and French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian, Mr. Hagel pledged to continue to coordinate the response to the attacks, defense officials said.

The U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet has four warships in the eastern Mediterranean equipped with Tomahawk missiles and other weapons systems that can strike Syria, Navy officials have said. The warships are being kept a "healthy distance from the coast" as a precaution against Syria's advanced Russian-made coastal defenses, a senior defense official said.

Syria in the Spotlight

Track the latest events in a map, see the key players and a chronology of the unrest.

Separately, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said any British action in Syria would have to be legal, proportionate and specifically about deterring the future use of chemical weapons in the world.

"This is not about getting involved in a Middle Eastern war or changing our stance in Syria or going further into that conflict," he said in a recorded interview broadcast by BBC television. "It is about chemical weapons, their use is wrong and the world shouldn't stand idly by."

The U.K. military is drawing up plans for a possible response to last week's suspected chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime and the U.K.'s parliament is due return to a few days early from its summer break to vote Thursday on what action to take, the government said Tuesday.

"No decision has yet been taken, but let's be clear what is at stake here. Almost 100 years ago the whole world came together and said that the use of chemical weapons was morally indefensible and completely wrong and what we have seen in Syria are appalling scenes of death and suffering because of the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime," Mr. Cameron said. "And I don't believe we can let that stand."

Mr. Hollande, in his Tuesday speech, hinted that France was open to supporting a military strike against the regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution—a step that French officials had previously stated was essential before taking action. "International law must evolve with its times. It can't be a pretext for allowing massacres to be perpetrated," Mr. Hollande said.

Russia, which holds veto power on the security council, backs the Assad regime, placing a possible U.N. resolution out of reach.

Access to the areas near Damascus affected by the presumed chemical weapons attack last Wednesday has been complicated by a Syria military operation—code-named Operation City Shield—that kicked off just hours after the first reports that toxic gas was killing residents.

For months, Syrian forces have successfully fought to regain control over the suburban regions surrounding the capital Damascus. The Eastern Ghouta region where the suspected chemical attack occurred is the last remaining area not under partial or total regime control.

Mr. Moallem, the foreign minister, said that the government launched its offensive on Aug. 21 as a "pre-emptive strike." He said that the government had intelligence showing that rebel fighters trained from outside Syria were amassing in that district. The rebels, he said, had planned a massive attack on Damascus from four different fronts. He said the current government operation in the Damascus would continue and would not be affected by plans by the U.S. and its allies to attack the regime.

"The military effort won't stop, they are dreaming if they want to limit the victories of the armed forces," said Mr. Moallem.

—Stacy Meichtry, Julian E. Barnes and Nicholas Winning contributed to this article.

Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com and Maria Abi-Habib at maria.habib@wsj.com

@ The Wall Street Journal