U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday that he is considering a "narrow" and "limited" military action in response the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Obama said he prefers multilateral action on Syria but doesn't want to world to be paralyzed by the 'incapacity' of U.N. Security Council to act on Syria.
He said the chemical attack in Syria was a challenge to the world and threatens U.S. national security and that it is part of U.S. obligation as a world leader is to make sure that when a government uses prohibited weapons that they are held to account.
Obama said no one is more "war weary" than he is, but U.S. must be willing to safeguard international norms.
Obama's comment came after a U.S. released an intelligence assessment that found with "high confidence" that Syrian President Bashar Assad's government carried out a chemical weapons attack last week.
The U.S. intelligence report said 1,429 people were killed in the chemical weapons attack, including at least 426 children, adding that the Syrian regime “carefully” planned for the attack.
“Syrian chemical weapons personnel were operating in the Damascus suburb of ‘Adra from Sunday, August 18 until early in the morning on Wednesday, August 21 near an area that the regime uses to mix chemical weapons, including sarin,” the report stated.
“On August 21, a Syrian regime element prepared for a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus area, including through the utilization of gas masks,” the report added.
