US believes Syria used chemical weapons

The US believes that Syria’s regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale, the White House has said.

But it added that president Barack Obama needed “credible and corroborated” facts before acting on that assessment.

The disclosure, made by the White House in a letter to Congress and by US defence secretary Chuck Hagel to reporters, moves the US closer to declaring Syria has crossed Obama’s “red line” on some kind of deeper involvement in the country’s civil war.