by Itunuoluwa Adebo

Russia has challenged President Donald Trump to set out his strategy on Syria after he declared that the recent chemical attack had transformed his views on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Trump, who has previously argued against removing Assad from power, said the attack on a rebel-held town in Syria’s Idlib province was a “heinous” act that crossed a lot of lines for him but would not offer any details of how US strategy on Syria would change.

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Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said on Wednesday there was “no doubt” that Assad was responsible for the attack and called on Russia to “really think carefully” about its continued support for the regime. According to CNN when asked if Russia would reconsider its backing for Assad, Russia’s Foreign Ministry instead challenged the US to show its cards.

“Russia’s approach to Assad is clear. He is the legal president of an independent state. What is the US approach?” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told CNN in a text message.

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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned against “snap judgments” on what happened in Idlib. “It’s indeed a very menacing course of events, dangerous and horrible crime. However, sticking labels on everyone, prematurely, is not a correct thing to do, in our opinion,” he told reporters on a regular call Thursday.  Russia is Syria’s most powerful ally and has provided the military might behind Assad’s grip on the country, which plunged into civil war six years ago.

Trump has maintained that the bloodshed in Syria was the result of weak policy under the previous Obama administration. He said that Obama’s failure to follow through with  his threat of crossing a red line “was a blank threat (that) set us back a long ways, not only in Syria but in many other parts of the world.”

Itunuoluwa