
A huge task force of 12 warships is setting sail for Syria in one of the biggest concentrations of US naval power since the 2003 Iraq invasion, it has emerged.

The giant nuclear powered USS Harry S Truman, carrying 90 aircraft and escorted by its five-strong strike group of destroyers and cruisers, is powering towards Europe and the Middle East.

A further four destroyers are believed to be in or near the Mediterranean already, including the Donald Cook, Porter, Carney and Laboon along with two nuclear-powered submarines, Georgia and John Warner.

The deployment of 12 US warships on one mission is a huge concentration of fire power, one of the biggest since six aircraft carriers supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It comes amid heightened tensions as Donald Trump continues to consider launching airstrikes on Syria in retaliation for a chemical gas attack in a rebel-held town on Saturday. Russia has threatened to take down any missiles launched at the Assad regime's forces using its fearsome S-400 defence system.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has reportedly moved his military assets to Russian bases in the country in the hope that the US and its allies would be reluctant to launch strikes anywhere near Vladimir Putin's forces.

The giant nuclear powered USS Harry S Truman, carrying 90 aircraft and escorted by its five-strong strike group of destroyers and cruisers, is powering towards Europe and the Middle East. In total the Truman will be accompanied by two submarines (USS Georgia and John Warner), nine destroyers (USS USS Donald Cook, Porter, Carney, Laboon, Farragut, Forrest Sherman, Bulkeley and Arleigh Burke) and one missile cruiser (USS Normandy).

The majority of the ships sailing towards Syria are Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. They are designed to perform a wide variety of missions including missile strikes, anti-submarine warfare, anti-aircraft duties and surface warfare. The USS Farragut (pictured) is among the ships accompanying the giant aircraft carrier. In total eight destroyers of this class are headed towards Syria: The USS Donald Cook, Porter, Carney, Laboon, Farragut, Forrest Sherman, Bulkeley and Arleigh Burke

All the Arleigh Burke class destroyers carry 90 Tomahawk missiles. One is pictured launching from the USS Porter in the Mediterranean in 2003

Aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines: The huge US armada heading for Syria AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS Harry S Truman, Nimitz-class: Weight: 116,000 tons Length: 1,092 ft Propulsion: Two Westinghouse A4W nuclear reactors and four steam turbines Propellers: Four Speed: 35mph Range: Unlimited Ship's crew: 3,200 Air wing personnel: 2,480ft Aircraft carried: 90 fixed wing and helicopters Armament: Sea Sparrow, RIM-116 Missile and three Phalanx guns Strike group: USS Normandy, USS Bulkeley, USS Arleigh Burke, USS Forrest Sherman, USS Farragut TWO SUBMARINES USS Georgia, Ohio-class: Length: 560 ft Propulsion: One S8G PWR nuclear reactor and two geared turbines Speed: 29mph Test depth: Greater than 800ft Crew: 155 Armament: Four torpedo tubes and 154 BGM-109 Tomahawks in 22 groups of seven USS John Warner, Virginia Class: Length: 377ft Speed: 29mph Crew: 132 Armament: 12 Tomahawk cruise missiles and four torpedo tubes Launched: September 10, 2014 EIGHT DESTROYERS Arleigh Burke Class: Donald Cook, Porter, Carney, Laboon, Farragut, Forrest Sherman, Bulkeley and Arleigh Burke Length: 505ft Displacement: 6,900 tons Crew: 276 Speed: 35mph Range: 4,400 nautical miles Armament: Includes Tomahawk missiles, Harpoon Missile launcher, chain guns GUIDED MISSILE CRUISER USS Normandy, Ticonderoga-class Length: 567ft Speed: 37.4mph Crew: 400 Advertisement

On Thursday, the White House said that a 'final decision' had not been made on Syria.

Donald Trump had said earlier in the day that Americans won't have to wait long for a response to Saturday's horrifying chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town that left at least 40 dead and others gasping for air.

But at least two of his top advisers couldn't agree on whether there's sufficient proof to blame the atrocity on dictator Bashar al-Assad's government, leaving the possibility of a retaliatory attack an open-ended question.

America's allies and adversaries alike were awaiting a signal from the White House about whether Trump will follow through on his warning that missiles 'will be coming,' potentially putting Russian troops in harm's way.

At close of business, the White House said that Trump had just concluded a meeting with his national security team and would be speaking again later to the heads of government in France and the U.K.

'No final decision has been made,' press secretary Sarah Sanders said. 'We are continuing to asses intelligence and are engaged in conversations with our partners and allies.'

Trump suggested that he'd have an answer in hours, telling reporters, 'It's too bad that the world puts us in a position like that, but as I said this morning we've done a great job with ISIS. We have just absolutely decimated ISIS. But now we have to make some further decisions, so they'll be made fairly soon.'

But on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. hasn't reached any conclusions.

President Donald Trump told reporters Thursday before a meeting with Republican senators and governors that he would decide 'fairly soon' on an American response to Saturday's deadly poison gas attack in Syria

The guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy (pictured) is also steaming towards Europe and the Middle East

The USS Georgia, an Ohio-class submarine carrying guided missiles, is also said to be in the area

If 'Russian blood' is shed, Moscow will hit back, warns Ex-General A former Russian General has warned that any intervention by the US, Britain and France could be a 'direct way to military confrontation with Russia '. Lieutenant-General Evgeny Buzhinskiy, who previously served on the Russian General Staff, said if 'Russian blood is spilled', then Moscow will respond in kind. He told BBC Radio 4's Today show that he believed if Russia determined that the UK was behind any attack on Syria , Moscow could order hits on UK aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean. Strong words: Lieutenant-General Evgeny Buzhinskiy said any intervention could be a 'direct way to military confrontation' 'As our chief of the general staff said a couple of weeks ago, Russia would shot down the missiles and its carriers and I don't think he was joking, that's a very serious situation and that's true,' he said. Asked if that could mean striking back at Cyprus, he said: 'If our military determined that the missiles were launched from the UK, carriers of course, UK carriers and missiles would be hit back.' Mr Buzhinskiy said it would be 'very difficult to find a significant military target in Syria where there are no Russians'. 'We have several thousands advisers in all military installation in all military units,' he said. 'If Russian blood is shed then Russia will retaliate.' Advertisement

'I believe there was a chemical attack,' Mattis told lawmakers, 'and we are looking for the actual evidence.' He said he wanted to see inspectors on the ground in Syria 'within the week.'

'As each day goes by – as you know, it is a non-persistent gas, so it becomes more and more difficult to confirm it.'

The USS Harry S Truman and its support ships were due to leave Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia on Wednesday.

It is accompanied by the cruiser USS Normandy and destroyers USS Farragut, USS Forrest Sherman, USS Bulkeley and USS Arleigh Burke.

Also among the strike group's ships is the German frigate FGS Hessen, a state-of-the-art vessel specialising in air defense.

US Navy officials said the Hessen is the only type of ship in the Western world with three kinds of surface-to-air missiles. Its radar has a detection range of more than 200 nautical miles for air targets.

Already in position is the USS Donald Cook, an American destroyer equipped with up to 60 Tomahawk land attack missiles.

In April last year Trump ordered 59 Tomahawk strikes on the Shayrat Airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack on rebel-held Khan Sheikhun.

These strikes were launched from two US warships stationed in the Mediterranean.

Trump and his national security aides on Thursday discussed US options on Syria, where he has threatened missile strikes in response to a poison gas attack, as a Russian envoy voiced fears of wider conflict between Washington and Moscow.

Worries about a confrontation between Russia, Syria's big ally, and the West have been running high since Trump said on Wednesday that missiles 'will be coming' in response to the attack in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7, and lambasted Moscow for standing by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Trump tempered those remarks on Thursday and even as he consulted allies such and Britain and France, who could join in any US-led strikes on Syria, there were signs of efforts to prevent the crisis from spiraling out of control.

'Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!' Trump wrote on Twitter, raising the prospect that an attack might not be as imminent as he seemed to suggest the day before.

Trump met his national security team on the situation in Syria later in the day and 'no final decision has been made,' the White House said in a statement.

'We are continuing to assess intelligence and are engaged in conversations with our partners and allies,' it said.

That did not necessarily signal, however, that Trump was cooling to the idea of military action, especially given the high stakes in Syria. U.S. officials noted that Washington was still assessing intelligence and coordinating allies.

Trump spoke to British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday and the two leaders talked about the 'need for a joint response to Syria's use of chemical weapons,' the White House said.

May's office said they agreed on the need to deter Assad's government from further such attacks.

Trump was also due to speak with French President Emmanuel Macron, who said France had proof the Syrian government carried out the attack near Damascus, which aid groups have said killed dozens of people, and will decide whether to strike back when all the necessary information has been gathered.

'We have proof that last week ... chemical weapons were used, at least with chlorine, and that they were used by the regime of Bashar al-Assad,' Macron said, without offering details of any evidence.

The U.S. has maintained its threat of rocket attacks in response to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's sickening chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Douma on Saturday

Syrians from the city of Douma - the target of a horrific chemical attack - arrive in the Al-Bab district of Aleppo in a bus convoy today

Macron told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during a telephone call Friday he wanted to 'intensify' talks on bringing peace to Syria, Macron's office said.

'The president of the Republic said he wanted the dialogue between France and Russia to continue and intensify in order to bring peace and stability to Syria,' the French presidency said after the call, which came as the West ponders possible strikes on Syria in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack.

Two US officials familiar with an investigation of samples from Douma and the symptoms of victims said initial indications that a mix of weaponised chlorine gas and sarin were used in the attack appeared to be correct. But US intelligence agencies have not completed their assessment or reached a final conclusion, the officials said.

Russia, Syria and its other main backer, Iran, have said reports of the Douma attack were fabricated by rebels and rescue workers and have accused the United States of seeking to use it as a pretext to attack the Syrian government.

Russia said it deployed military police in Douma on Thursday after the town was taken over by government forces.

'They are the guarantors of law and order in the town,' RIA news agency quoted Russia's defense ministry as saying.

This morning Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he hoped that there would be no repeat of the experience of Libya and Iraq in the Syria conflict.

'God forbid anything adventurous will be done in Syria following the Libyan and Iraqi experience,' Lavrov told a news conference on Friday.

He said that even the smallest miscalculation in Syria could lead to new waves of migrants and that ultimatums and threats do not help the dialogue.

'Even non-significant incidents would lead to new waves of migrants to Europe and to other consequences, which neither we nor our European neighbors need,' Lavrov said.

Family members look on as the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman departs with its carrier strike group towards the Middle East from Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, on April 11

Russia blames Trump's 'mood' for nearly provoking global war after the President tweeted 'get ready, the missiles are coming' The Russian Deputy Prime Minister made a thinly veiled dig at Donald Trump's Twitter habits on Friday, saying international relations should not depend on what side of the bed one person wakes up on. Arkady Dvorkovich said the international community cannot depend 'on what a specific person takes into his head in the morning'. This came after the U.S. President's 7am tweet on Wednesday in which he warned that missiles 'will be coming' in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack by Syrian government forces. Russia is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's most important military ally in the country's civil war. Speaking at a forum in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, Dvorkovich made it clear that Russia had not taken Trump's Twitter-threats seriously. Shade: Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said international relations cannot depend on one person's mood - a dig at U.S. President Donald Trump's Twitter habits 'We cannot depend on the mood of someone on the other side of the ocean when he wakes up, on what a specific person takes into his head in the morning,' Dvorkovich said at a forum in Krasnoyarsk, according to the TASS news agency. 'We cannot take such risks.' Despite initially going out verbal guns a-blazing on Wednesday, President Trump appeared to dial down his threats in a tweets that followed 24 hours later. 'Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!' it said. He then lambasted the international community for being ungrateful, taking credit for the support the U.S. gave to Kurdish Peshmerga troops in the fight against ISIS. He wrote: 'In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our 'Thank you America?'' Trump met his national security team on the situation in Syria later in the day and as of Thursday, 'no final decision has been made' on a response, the White House said in a statement. Early morning Wednesday: the U.S. President's 7am tweet saw him warne that missiles 'will be coming' in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack by Syrian government forces Waking up on Thursday: President Trump posted a somewhat back-pedalling tweet the following morning, stating he had never said when he would strike President Trump has been having discussions with both Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron regarding an international response to the alleged chemical attack in eastern Ghouta on Saturday. Both May and Trump have agreed that whatever the final decision on airstrikes, the Syrian regime must not go unchallenged following the attack which left at least 80 dead and hundreds injured in the city of Douma. Mrs May won backing from her senior ministers on Thursday to take unspecified action with the United States and France to deter further use of chemical weapons by Syria. Macron, meanwhile, said on Thursday that France had proof the Syrian government carried out the Douma attack and would decide whether to strike back when all necessary information had been gathered. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has today said Moscow has 'irrefutable' evidence that an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria was staged with the help of a foreign secret service. 'We have irrefutable evidence that this was another staged event, and that the secret services of a certain state that is now at the forefront of a Russophobic campaign was involved in this staged event,' he said during a press conference. The Times has reported that the biggest US air and naval task force since the Iraq War in 2003 is heading towards Syria. It consists of ten warships and two submarines, with the USS Donald Cook - a destroyer equipped with up to 60 Tomahawk missiles - already in range. The paper also reported that Russian anti-submarine planes were ready to deploy from the Russian airbase in Syria's west. Advertisement

The United States is discussing with allies a military response to an alleged gas attack by Syrian government forces on the town of Douma that killed dozens of people, which could lead to confrontation with Russia.

Russia and the United States are using their channels of communications on Syria, according to Lavrov.

'As for the channels - and they are periodical conversations between presidents and quite regular channels between the military - they are being used,' the minister said.

There were signs of a global effort to head off a direct confrontation between Russia and the West. The Kremlin said a crisis communications link with the United States, created to avoid an accidental clash over Syria, was in use.

Vassily Nebenzia, Moscow's ambassador to the United Nations, said he 'cannot exclude' war between the United States and Russia and urged Washington and its allies to refrain from military action against Syria.

'The immediate priority is to avert the danger of war,' he told reporters. 'We hope there will be no point of no return,' the envoy said.

A team of experts from the global chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, was traveling to Syria and will start its investigations on Saturday, the Netherlands-based agency said.

It was not clear whether Trump and U.S. allies would wait for the results of the investigation before deciding on a strike.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress he believed there was a chemical attack in Syria, but added a short while later that the United States had not made any decision to launch military action. He also suggested he was examining ways to prevent any strikes from triggering a broader conflict.

'I don't want to talk about a specific attack that is not yet in the offing ... This would be pre-decisional,' Mattis told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

Moscow is estimated to have dozens of aircraft at its Hmeymim air base in Syria including fighters and bombers, as well as 10 to 15 warships and support vessels in the Mediterranean.

The Syrian government and Russian forces in Syria possess truck-mounted surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery weapons systems.

Nervous world stock markets showed signs of recovery after Trump's signal that military strikes might not be imminent.

Britain's May won backing from her senior ministers to take unspecified action with the United States and France to deter further use of chemical weapons by Syria.

May had recalled the ministers from their Easter holiday for the meeting to discuss Britain's response to what she has cast as a barbaric attack that cannot go unchallenged.

Russian ships had left the Tartus naval base in Syria, Interfax news agency quoted a Russian lawmaker as saying. Vladimir Shamanov, who chairs the defense committee of the lower house, said the vessels had departed the base for their own safety, which was 'normal practice' when there were threats of attack.

Meanwhile, Germany's foreign minister said today that Western powers must step up the pressure on Russia over its role in the Syrian civil war and that the chemical weapons attack cannot pass 'without consequences'.

After talks in Brussels with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, Heiko Maas condemned Moscow - Assad's key ally - for repeatedly blocking resolutions on Syria at the UN Security Council.

'We must increase pressure on Russia to force it to change attitude. Everyone knows there is only a solution to the conflict in Syria with Russia,' Maas said.

Germany has ruled out taking part in any military action and Maas warned against starting an 'escalation spiral'. But he gave his support to a French proposal to bring those responsible for chemical attacks before an international court.

'I am also of the opinion that what has happened there cannot remain without consequences,' he said.

Syria will be high on the agenda when EU foreign ministers including Maas gather in Luxembourg for their monthly talks. The bloc is expected to condemn the Douma incident and reiterate its longstanding call for a political resolution to Syria's bloody seven-year conflict.