WASHINGTON/PARIS The United States made clear on Friday that it would punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the "brutal and flagrant" chemical weapons attack that it says killed more than 1,400 people in Damascus last week. 
 
 "We can not accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale," President Barack Obama told reporters at the White House. 
 
 He said the United States was still in the planning process for a "limited, narrow" military response that would not involve "boots on the ground" or be open-ended. He set no timetable for action. 
 
 Secretary of State John Kerry said it was essential not to let Syria get away with the attack, partly as a sign to those who might consider using chemical weapons in the future. 
 
 "History would judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turned a blind eye to a dictator's wanton use of weapons of mass destruction," Kerry said in a televised statement. 
 
 Syria's foreign ministry repeated the government's denial that it had used chemical weapons and said Kerry's accusations were a "desperate attempt" to justify a military strike. "What he said was lies," the ministry said of Kerry's statement. 
 
 With France on Friday affirming its support for a military response to punish Assad's government, the statements from Obama and Kerry appeared to harden the resolve for a U.S. attack despite Thursday's British parliamentary "no" vote that left Washington without one of its closest allies. 
 
 The timing of the attack, most likely with cruise missiles from U.S. Navy destroyers already stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, was uncertain, but it was unlikely to come before U.N. weapons experts leave Syria on Saturday. 
 
 Kerry said that "if a thug and a murderer like Bashar al-Assad can gas thousands of his own people with impunity," it would set a bad example for others, such as Iran, Hezbollah and North Korea. 
 
 Obama said chemical weapons attacks such as last week's threatened U.S. national security interests as well as U.S. allies such as Israel, Turkey and Jordan. 
 
 "So, I have said before, and I meant what I said, that the world has an obligation to make sure that we maintain the norm against the use of chemical weapons," he said. 
 
 Kerry laid out a raft of evidence he said showed Assad's forces were behind the attack, and the U.S. government released an unclassified intelligence report at the same time including many of the details. The report said the August 21 attack killed 1,429 Syrian civilians, including 426 children. 
 
 The intelligence included an intercepted communication by a senior official intimately familiar with the attack as well as other intelligence from people's accounts and intercepted messages, the four-page report said. 
 
 "Any action that he (Obama) might decide to take will be (a) limited and tailored response to ensure that a despot's brutal and flagrant use of chemical weapons is held accountable," Kerry said. 
 
 Assad's government has accused rebels of perpetrating the attacks in order to provoke intervention. 
 
 Syrian state television, which did not carry Kerry's speech live, reported that Kerry said the "first and last" aim of any action the Obama administration will carry out in the Middle East was to "guarantee the security of Israel." 
 
 Kerry said the U.N. inspectors' report would only confirm that chemical weapons were used and made clear it would not change much for Washington since "guaranteed Russian obstructionism" would make it impossible for the U.N. to galvanize world action. 
 
 "The primary question is really no longer, what do we know? The question is, what are we - we collectively - what are we in the world going to do about it?" Kerry said. 
 
 The timing of any strikes may be complicated by Obama's departure late on Tuesday for Sweden and a G20 summit in Russia. 
 
 SHIFTING ALLIANCES 
 
 Kerry and Obama were speaking the day after British Prime Minister David Cameron failed to win parliamentary backing for military action in Syria. 
 
 Finance minister George Osborne, one of Cameron's closest allies, accepted that the vote had raised questions about Britain's future relations with its allies. 
 
 French President Francois Hollande told the daily Le Monde he still supported taking "firm" punitive action over an attack he said had caused "irreparable" harm to the Syrian people. 
 
 Hollande is not constrained by the need for parliamentary approval of any move to intervene in Syria and could act before lawmakers debate the issue on Wednesday. An official in his office said the French president spoke to Obama on Friday and "they showed great determination about this crisis." 
 
 Britain has traditionally been the United States' most reliable military ally. However, the defeat of the government motion authorizing a military response in principle underscored misgivings dating from how the country decided to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. 
 
 Russia, Assad's most powerful diplomatic ally, opposes any military intervention in Syria, saying an attack would increase tension and undermine the chances of ending the civil war. 
 
 Yuri Ushakov, senior foreign policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the British vote represented majority opinion in Europe. 
 
 "People are beginning to understand how dangerous such scenarios are," he told reporters. "Russia is actively working to avert a military scenario in Syria. 
 
 Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said any intervention in Syria should be aimed at ending Assad's rule - a goal that Obama has ruled out. 
 
 U.S. CAUTION 
 
 Kerry said the U.S. intelligence community had carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding the attack. "I will tell you it has done so more than mindful of the Iraq experience. We will not repeat that moment." 
 
 Kerry said that three days before the attack, the Syrian government's chemical weapons personnel were on the ground in the area, making preparations. 
 
 "And we know that the Syrian regime elements were told to prepare for the attack by putting on gas masks and taking precautions associated with chemical weapons." 
 
 "We know that a senior regime official who knew about the attack confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime, reviewed the impact, and actually was afraid that they would be discovered," Kerry said. 
 
 Assad's forces fired rockets on Friday at a Damascus suburb hit by poison gas last week in another attempt to capture the strategic area, opposition activists said. 
 
 Polls show the American public is largely opposed to U.S. military action, and after a Thursday briefing some lawmakers said they were still not convinced of the need for it. Some questioned whether the Pentagon could afford to attack Syria after spending cuts imposed this year. 
 
 A new Reuters/Ipsos poll on Friday showed 53 percent of those surveyed this week said the United States should stay out of Syria's civil war, down from 60 percent last week. Twenty percent said the United States should take action, up from 9 percent last week. 
 
 Analysts said there was little doubt about the message from Obama's administration. "I would now be shocked if the U.S. government doesn't go to war, even if alone," said Bilal Saab, director and head of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. "This is as clear a case for intervention, from the administration's standpoint, as can be." 
 
 Some allies, including Italy, have warned that military action without U.N. Security Council authorisation may make matters worse. Russia holds veto power as a permanent Security Council member and has blocked three resolutions meant to press Assad to stop the violence since the revolt began in 2011. 
 
 Western diplomats have been seeking a vote in the 15-member Council on a draft measure, which would authorize "all necessary force" in response to the suspected gas attack, to isolate Moscow and show that other nations back military action. 
 
 But China said there should be no rush to force a council decision on Syria until the U.N. inspectors complete their work. 
 
 The United Nations said its experts had completed the collection of samples and evidence from last week's attack. U.N. spokesman Martin Nasik said all the analysis of the samples must be completed before conclusions can be drawn. 
 
 Diplomats said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Security Council members it may be two weeks before final results of the tests are ready. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Andrea Shalal-Esa, Patricia Zengerle, Thomas Ferraro and Jeff Mason in Washington, Erika Solomon and Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Sarah Marsh in Berlin, Timothy Heritage in Moscow, Phil Stewart in Manila, Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Lidia Kelly in Moscow, Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in Beijing, John Irish in Paris and Andrew Osborn, Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Peter Apps in London; Writing by Alistair Lyon and Claudia Parsons; editing by David Storey and Jim Loney) Interactive timeline: link.reuters.com/rut37s ||||| European Union foreign chief Catherine Ashton says strong response is essential to make clear there is no impunity 
 
 The European Union has called a chemical weapons attack in Damascus a crime against humanity and says it was probably carried out by the Syrian government. 
 
 Following a meeting with the US secretary of state, John Kerry, EU foreign ministers said that any punitive military attack should not be carried out until the delivery of a report by United Nations inspectors. 
 
 Catherine Ashton, the EU's representative for foreign affairs issued a statement on Saturday calling the chemical attack a "blatant violation of international law, a war crime and a crime against humanity". 
 
 She said information from a wide variety of sources had confirmed the chemical attack and "seems to indicate strong evidence that the Syrian regime is responsible" as it is the only party "that possesses chemical weapons agents and the means of their delivery in a sufficient quantity". 
 
 The statement said a "clear and strong response is crucial to make clear that such crimes are unacceptable and that there can be no impunity". 
 
 Ashton's comments came after President Barack Obama returned to the US from the G20 summit in Russia and said that an attack on Syria would not become "another Iraq or Afghanistan". 
 
 "We are the United States of America. We cannot turn a blind eye to images like the ones we've seen out of Syria," he said. 
 
 The president will try to persuade Congress to support him in punishing Syria for using chemical weapons. "Any action we take would be limited, both in time and scope – designed to deter the Syrian government from gassing its own people again and degrade its ability to do so," he said on his weekly broadcast on Saturday. 
 
 Obama failed to get international agreement for an attack on Syria at the summit in St Petersburg. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, claimed that a majority of the G20 opposed any US-led intervention, and gave no ground by continuing to insist that the chemical weapons attacks were a provocation by Syrian rebels designed to win international backing for an attack on the Assad regime. 
 
 David Cameron warned that the world could not "contract out" its morality to a Russian veto at the UN security council over its response to the poison gas attack which killed hundreds in a Damascus suburb. 
 
 He claimed that those who blamed Bashar al-Assad's government and backed a strike against the regime had "far the better of the argument". 
 
 Putin declared that any attack without a UN resolution would "violate the law", indicating that he was ready to give further military assistance to the Assad regime if it were attacked. 
 
 "Will we help Syria? We will. And we are already helping – we send arms, we co-operate in the economic sphere," he said. 
 
 The Russian president blames the chemical attack on anti-regime "militants" hoping for support from the outside world, which Cameron said was "impossible to believe". 
 
 Putin listed those backing military action and added: "Mr Cameron is also in favour, but in Britain parliament was against that." 
 
 Obama was left relatively isolated at the G20, as only France indicated it was ready to join the US in an armed response, while Britain, Turkey, Canada and Saudi Arabia voiced support for robust action. 
 
 The US president insisted there was "a growing recognition that we cannot sit idly by" and announced plans to make an address on Syria from the White House on Tuesday. 
 
 Cameron voiced frustration at the argument heard around the table during talks on Syria that no action should be taken unless sanctioned by the security council. 
 
 "If we accept that the only way a response can be made to a country that was massacring half or more than half of its people is if the UN security council votes positively, we are contracting out our foreign policy, our morality, to the potential of a Russian veto," he said. 
 
 He added: "Many of us believe that there is a case for taking action when you are trying to prevent a humanitarian emergency. It's better with the UN security council resolution, but you cannot rule out taking action if you cannot get it. I think we should learn from some of the genocides we've seen in our world that there is an imperative for a line to be drawn." 
 
 The formal communique from the summit made no mention of Syria – which was not on the official agenda and was discussed over dinner – but 11 member states including the UK issued a joint statement supporting "efforts undertaken by the United States and other countries to reinforce the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons". 
 
 It said the world "cannot wait for endless failed processes that can only lead to increased suffering in Syria and regional instability". 
 
 The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Assad's troops fired mortars and artillery early on Saturday at opposition fighters' positions near Moldokhiya, an agricultural area south of Damascus, killing 14 rebels. Two civilians also died in the shelling. 
 
 William Hague, the foreign secretary, is meeting EU foreign ministers in Lithuania, where they will also be joined by the US secretary of state, John Kerry.
– John Kerry said it. Joe Biden said it. But now the person who truly matters has said it: President Obama has concluded that Syria used chemical weapons, he tells PBS NewsHour. Obama, however, said he has not made a decision about a possible military strike. The president said it's clear that chemical weapons were used, and he said the US has ruled out the possibility that the rebels were responsible, as Bashar al-Assad's government claims. "We have concluded that the Syrian government, in fact, carried these out, and if that's so, then there need to be international consequences." The US is in consultation with its allies, he said, adding that "I have no interest in any kind of open-ended conflict on Syria." Pressed on what such a limited action would accomplish, Obama said it would send a "pretty strong signal" to the Assad regime that it must stop the chemical attacks. The bigger message to Assad? "You are not only breaking international norms and standards of decency, but you're also creating a situation where US national interests are affected."