In an exclusive interview with AFP, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad said Syria had taken "every measure" to retaliate against a potential strike, but refused to provide any clue as to what that might mean.

He also insisted that Russia had not wavered in its support for its long-time ally, despite comments by President Vladimir Putin suggesting a more conciliatory tone towards the West.

"The United States is currently mobilising its allies for an aggression against Syria," he said, adding that Damascus was therefore doing the same and that its allies were "offering it all sorts of support."

"Iran, Russia, South Africa and some Arab countries have rejected this aggression and are ready to face this war that the United States and its allies, including France, will declare against Syria", he said, without elaborating.

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Syrian deputy Foreign Minister, Faisal Muqdad poses in his office following an interview with AFP's …

"The Syrian government will not change position even if there is World War III. No Syrian can sacrifice the independence of his country."

US President Barack Obama is busy trying to convince Congress to approve a strike against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in retaliation for a suspected deadly poison gas attack on August 21 that Washington blames on Damascus.

France is pushing, along with the United States, for military strikes, with President Francois Hollande having said "this crime cannot remain unpunished."

The French parliament was debating the issue on Wednesday, and Muqdad lashed out at Paris, saying its stand on Syria was "shameful."

"It's shameful that the French president... says 'if Congress approves, I go to war, otherwise I won't go', as if the French government had no say in the matter," Muqdad said.

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Syrian deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad poses in his office following an interview with AFP's j …

That was apparently a reference to a statement earlier this week by Patricia Adam, chairwoman of the National Assembly's defence committee, who said "France will not act alone... If the American Congress opposes intervention, France will not go."

The regime categorically denies any responsibility for the alleged attack in Damascus suburbs and has said it is cooperating with UN inspectors who are currently analysing samples taken from the sites of the suspected incident.

Analysts fear that the conflict currently tearing Syria apart will spill over permanently into fragile, neighbouring countries such as Lebanon, where supporters of the Damascus regime are already pitted against its opponents.

And allies Russia and Iran have warned that any military intervention would have devastating regional consequences.

But in an interview broadcast earlier Wednesday, Putin appeared to strike a more conciliatory note by saying he did not exclude agreeing to strikes if it was proven the regime had carried out the alleged gas attack.

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Syrian deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad answers AFP's journalists' questions during an intervie …

Yet Muqdad stressed that Moscow had not wavered in its support of Damascus.

"The Russian position is unchanged; it's a responsible position of a friend that is in favour of peace," he said.

In later comments at a Kremlin meeting, Putin appeared to corroborate this, warning the US Congress that it would be legitimising an "aggression" if it gave its blessing to military action in a vote expected next week.

Washington says the alleged chemical weapons attack on August 21 killed more than 1,400 people.

Since the Syrian conflict broke out in March 2011 with an uprising against the Assad regime, more than 110,000 people have died, including over 40,100 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syria will take 'every measure' to retaliate

A Syrian official says the country is mobilizing its allies for support against a potential strike.'Even if there is WWIII'

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — President Barack Obama is heading into the lion's den of Russia, confronting Syria's key patron as well as foreign leaders skeptical of his call for an international military strike against Bashar Assad's government.

Obama on Thursday began a two-day visit to St. Petersburg for the Group of 20 economic summit, putting him in the same country as Edward Snowden for the first time since the American fugitive fled to Moscow earlier this year. Both Syria and Snowden have been sore points in an already strained U.S.-Russian relationship, fueling the notion that Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin just can't get along.

The White House went out of its way to say Obama, who arrived Thursday after a quick flight from Stockholm, would not meet one-on-one with the Russian leader while in St. Petersburg. Instead, Obama will meet on the summit's sidelines with the leaders of France, China and Japan.

Still struggling to persuade dubious lawmakers at home on Syria, Obama in Russia will seek to win over world leaders reluctant to get drawn in to yet another U.S.-led sortie in a Mideast nation. Although Syria wasn't formally on the agenda for the economy-focused summit, U.S. officials were resigned to the fact that the bloody civil war there surely would overwhelm any talks about global economics, just as it did three months ago when many of the same leaders convened for a Group of 8 summit in Northern Ireland.

In June, it was weapons and ammunition Obama wanted leaders to send to struggling rebels fighting Assad's regime. Obama's far more daunting goal now will be to persuade his counterparts to put their own militaries on the line.

In an ironic twist for Obama, the nation hosting the summit is also the nation most forcefully obstructing Obama's path to an international consensus. Russia has provided critical military and financial backing for Assad and has leveraged its veto power in the U.N. Security Council to keep a resolution condemning Syria from getting off the ground. At the same time, Obama has had little success enticing individual nations to join the effort.

Further complicating Obama's efforts to present a united front is the raging debate in Congress over whether to approve a strike — a debate Obama invited when he abruptly decided Saturday to seek congressional approval amid deep concerns from both parties. Some lawmakers view Obama as trying to preserve his own credibility after issuing an ultimatum to Assad last year against using chemical weapons.

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U.S. President Barack Obama, right, meets with Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf, center, and Queen Silvi …

"My credibility is not on the line. The international community's credibility is on the line," Obama said Wednesday at news conference in Stockholm.

While insisting Obama has yet to prove his case, Putin appeared to temper his rhetoric slightly in a pre-summit interview with The Associated Press, saying he wouldn't rule out backing a U.N. resolution if it can be proved Assad gassed his own people with chemical weapons, as the U.S. has alleged.

He also played down any personal tensions with Obama while acknowledging the parsing of the body language that's become a geopolitical parlor game every time the two leaders meet.

"President Obama hasn't been elected by the American people in order to be pleasant to Russia," Putin said. "And your humble servant hasn't been elected by the people of Russia to be pleasant to someone either."

Such an admission revealed a remarkable lowering of the bar from the summer of 2009 when Obama, on his last visit to Russia, trumpeted a "reset" in relations between the former Cold War foes.

"This will not be easy," Obama said in Moscow. "It's hard to change habits that have been ingrained in our governments and our bureaucracies for decades."

Indeed, it hasn't been easy. The crisis in Syria joins a long list of contentious issues that have made cooperation between the countries a trying endeavor, even though Obama points to successes early in his presidency on nuclear stockpile reduction and trading regulations. More recently, the two have butted heads over missile defense, human rights and other issues.

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President Barack Obama gestures during his joint news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik …

Obama will call attention to one such area of disagreement — gay rights — when he meets Friday in St. Petersburg with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists.

The lead-up to Obama's arrival at the G-20 was notable not for what he did, but for what he didn't do: visit Moscow. The president had been set to go to the Russian capital for a face-to-face with Putin but dramatically abandoned those plans last month after Russia granted asylum to Snowden, flouting Obama's requests that he be returned to the U.S. The former National Security Agency systems analyst faces espionage charges after absconding with a trove of documents detailing secret U.S. surveillance programs and leaking them to the media.

"However people in the West look at Snowden, the Russians saw him as a defector," said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador and Russia expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "And the rules of the game are, you don't return defectors."

After calling off the meeting with Putin, Obama decided instead to visit Sweden, where he met Wednesday with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and other Nordic leaders. He wrapped up his visit Thursday with a meeting with King Carl XVI Gustaf at Sweden's Royal Palace.

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AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace in Stockholm contributed to this report.

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Follow Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Iran will support Syria 'to the end': military chief

Iran will support Syria "until the end" in the face of possible US-led military strikes, the chief of Iran's elite Quds Force unit was quoted Thursday by the media as saying.

Iran is Syria's main regional ally and some analysts believe a wider goal of US President Barack Obama's determination to launch a strike against the Damascus regime is to blunt Tehran's growing regional influence and any consequent threat to Washington ally Israel.

"The aim of the United States is not to protect human rights ... but to destroy the front of resistance (against Israel)," Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani was quoted as saying.

"We will support Syria to the end," he added in a speech to the Assembly of Experts, the body that supervises the work of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He did not elaborate on the nature of the support and Iran has constantly denied allegations by Western powers that it has sent military forces to prop up President Bashar al-Assad's embattled regime.

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Members of the Free Syrian Army watch as they fire a homemade rocket towards forces loyal to Syria's …

A year ago, the chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said that members of the Quds Force foreign operations unit were in Syria but only to provide Assad's government with "counsel and advice".

Soleimani accused the US of using its claims that Syria's forces had unleashed chemical weapons on civilians last month as a "pretext" to try to topple Assad's regime.

Iran's Defence Minister Hossein Dehqan, meanwhile, ruled out sending troops or weapons to Syria.

"The Syrians do not need us to provide them with weapons because they have a defensive anti-aircraft system themselves," he was cited in the local media as saying.

President Hassan Rowhani said Iran will do "everything to prevent" an attack on the Syrian regime, according to extracts from statements he made before the Assembly of Experts published in the media.

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Syria braces for tough response from West.

"Any action against Syria is against the interests of the region but also against the friends of the United States in this region," he said.

"Such action will help nobody."

The US, France and other countries accuse Assad's forces of launching chemical weapons attacks on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, which they say killed hundreds.

Obama is seeking congressional backing as well as broader international support for punitive strikes on Assad's regime.

Iran has warned that any military action against Syria risks sparking a broader regional conflagration.

Iran official: We'll support Syria 'to the end'

A key military chief asserts that America's chief concern in the region isn't protecting human rights.
What Iran is willing to send

Military solution in Syria would be futile, Pope tells G20

Pope Francis listens to a speech during a private audience with Baselios Mar Thoma Paulose II, Catholicos of the East's Malankara Metropolitan of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, at the Vatican September 5, 2013. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the G20 summit, urged world leaders on Thursday to "lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution" in Syria.

The United States and France are considering military action against Damascus in response to a chemical attack on August 21 that killed hundreds of people.

The Vatican released the letter as the Holy See briefed ambassadors about the pope's initiatives, including an unprecedented international day of prayer for peace in Syria which he has called for this Saturday.

The U.S. and French envoys were among some 70 envoys at Thursday's meeting with Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's foreign minister.

"It is regrettable that, from the very beginning of the conflict in Syria, one-sided interests have prevailed and in fact hindered the search for a solution that would have avoided the senseless massacre now unfolding," the pope said.

"To the (G20) leaders present, to each and every one, I make a heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution."

He said the international community should instead press for "a peaceful solution through dialogue and negotiation".

G20 host Putin is trying to talk U.S. President Barack Obama out of air strikes to punish President Bashar al-Assad for the chemical weapons attack, which the West blames on the Syrian government. Assad's government denies it was responsible.

In the letter, Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, asked the Russian president to pray for him.

Putin always attends major religious festivals of the Russian Orthodox Church and has deepened his ties with the Church in recent years as part of a conservative course he has taken as president to rally voters behind him following street protests by the opposition.

The Vatican has been pressing its message on Syria all week since the pope announced his peace initiative last Sunday.

The Holy See's deputy justice minister said the Syrian conflict had "all the ingredients" to spark a global conflict and the leader of the worldwide Jesuit order said a military intervention by the United States or France would be "an abuse of power".

Francis has called on the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics to join him on Saturday in a day of prayer and fasting to end the Syrian conflict. He has invited members of all faiths to join him around the world in whatever way they see fit.

He will lead a prayer service in St Peter's Square expected to draw tens of thousands of people. At about five hours, it will be one of the longest events ever at the Vatican.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Heritage in St Petersburg, editing by Barry Moody and Mark Trevelyan)

Striking Syria is a 'futile pursuit,' the pope says

In a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the pontiff asks the G20 nations to "lay aside" military intervention.
His proposed course of action

US spies missed signs of Aug. 21 Syrian WMD Strike

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence agencies did not detect the Syrian regime readying a massive chemical weapons attack in the days ahead of the strike, only piecing together what had happened after the fact, U.S. officials say.

One of the key pieces of intelligence that Secretary of State John Kerry later used to link the attack to the Syrian government — intercepts of communications telling Syrian military units to prepare for the strikes — was in the hands of U.S. intelligence agencies but had not yet been "processed," according to senior U.S. officials.

That explains why the White House did not warn either the regime or the rebels who might be targeted as it had done when detecting previous preparations for chemical strikes.

"We know that for three days before the attack the Syrian regime's chemical weapons personnel were on the ground in the area making preparations," Kerry said as he presented the evidence in a State Department speech last week. "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."

But the Obama administration only uncovered the evidence after Syrians started posting reports of the strike from the scene of the attack, leading U.S. spies and analysts to focus on satellite and other evidence showing a Syrian chemical weapons unit was preparing chemical munitions before the strike, according to two current U.S. officials and two former senior intelligence officials.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the intelligence publicly.

The spokesman for the director of national intelligence confirmed that U.S. intelligence did not detect the massive chemical weapons attack beforehand.

"Let's be clear, the United States did not watch, in real time, as this horrible attack took place," Shawn Turner said in a statement to The Associated Press on Wednesday. "The intelligence community was able to gather and analyze information after the fact and determine that elements of the Assad regime had in fact taken steps to prepare prior to using chemical weapons," Turner said.

Turner offered no reason for the delay in processing the intelligence, but current and former intelligence officials said analysts were stretched too thin with the multiple streams of intelligence coming out of multiple conflict zones, from Syria to Libya to Yemen.

In December, U.S. intelligence detected Syria's military was readying chemical weapons for use, and President Barack Obama warned the Syrian government publicly that such use was "totally unacceptable" and that the country's leaders would be held accountable.

The White House is now asking Congress to approve a punitive strike against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which the administration blames for an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus.

The administration says 1,429 died in the attack. Casualty estimates by other groups are far lower.

Kerry and other officials are laying out the intelligence in open and closed sessions with lawmakers, explaining why the U.S. intelligence community last week issued a "high confidence" report implicating the Syrian regime — a conclusion echoed by British and French intelligence in similar reports made public since the attack.

Senior administration officials explained last week that the U.S. intelligence community had reconstructed a picture of the attack, from satellite and signals intercepts that indicated to them that troops from Syria's military unit that handles chemical weapons, the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, were readying such weapons. That conclusion was backed up, however, by a carefully written sentence that indicated the intelligence was somewhat circumstantial: "Syrian chemical weapons personnel were operating ... near an area that the regime uses to mix chemical weapons, including sarin."

The report says U.S. intelligence intercepted communications after the attack by a "senior official intimately familiar with the offensive" who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian government, and was concerned that the U.N. inspectors might find evidence of the attack. The report also says the U.S. has intelligence that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to "cease operations" on the afternoon of Aug. 21, several hours after the attack.

The U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence say such intercepts were in hand but waiting to be processed among hours of intercepted military communications.

The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have dozens officers on the ground in countries neighboring Syria, relying on a network of rebels and local agents to provide human intelligence on the goings on of both the regime and its opponents. The Pentagon also has satellites focused on the area, capturing images of the regime and rebel maneuvers, while various types of airborne platforms collect electronic transmissions such as military radio traffic or cellphone calls.

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Follow Kimberly Dozier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kimberlydozier