AUSTRALIA will stand alongside the United States on military strikes on Syria with Australian spies now confirming the Syrian regimes use of chemical weapons on civilians.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr, attending the G20 leaders forum in Russia in place of an election mode Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, today revealed Australia’s spy agencies had its own intelligence which confirmed the Assad regime was behind the chemical bombing of its own citizens.

Senator Carr said the US like others wanted a negotiated peaceful outcome to the Syrian crisis but any use of chemical weapons had to be met with an appropriate reaction as defined by the US military in a 30-day limited air strike of Syrian regime air assets and other sites associated with chemical warfare.

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media_camera Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carrat the G20 media centre in Strelna, Saint Petersburg. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

“Yes we would,” Senator Carr said defiantly on the question of support for US air strikes.

“Our assessment of the evidence according to our intelligence community accords with that of the Americans. And I want to emphasise we haven’t just seen the American assessment, our intelligence people have seen the raw data, the material that was collected even before it was subjected to assessment. Again our caution and America’s caution reflects the lessons learned out of the high adventurism of 2002-2003 in Iraq. That is being avoided. But a global norm has been violated a nation is using chemical weapons, used chemical weapons against children.”

Senator Carr said the breach of those norms justified a response.

He would not elaborate whether the raw data analysis - understood to include soil and body samples taken at sites in Damascus following the bombings on August 21 which killed almost 1500 people - meant Australian spooks had agents active on the ground in Syria.

The G20 leaders grouping is expected to discuss Syria overnight and tomorrow with both the Chinese and Russian delegations questioning the voracity of intelligence gathered of the chemical attack.

Senator Carr said no-one could afford to “demonise” the Russia perspective on Syria but engage the nation “and bring together a cease fire, a negotiated solution that’s sees movement toward a plural multi-faith Syria and you wont do that without Russia, you wont do that without Iran”.



Originally published as Aussie spies confirmed Syria chemicals