America's ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has warned that Washington "remains prepared to act if we must," if the UN Security Council fails to act over the latest Syrian attacks on the eastern Ghouta enclave.
Haley said on Monday that the US had asked the Security Council to demand an immediate 30-day ceasefire in Damascus and eastern Ghouta, where Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, backed by Russia and Iran, continue shelling the rebel-held eastern Ghouta enclave
The army's onslaught in eastern Ghouta, backed by air and artillery strikes, has killed about 1,160 people since February 18, a war monitor said, as Assad seeks to crush the last big rebel stronghold near the capital Damascus.
"It is not the path we prefer, but it is a path we have demonstrated we will take, and we are prepared to take again," Haley told the 15-member Security Council.
"When the international community consistently fails to act, there are times when states are compelled to take their own action."
The United States bombed a Syrian government air base last year over a deadly chemical weapons attack.
The Security Council demanded a 30-day ceasefire across Syria in a unanimously adopted February 24 resolution.
Russia and Damascus say a ceasefire ordered by the UN Security Council does not protect the fighters in eastern Ghouta, arguing that they are members of banned terrorist groups.
Earlier on Monday, Jaish al-Islam, one of the main rebel groups in Syria's eastern Ghouta, said it had reached an agreement with the government's ally Russia to evacuate wounded people from the besieged enclave near Damascus.
Bit a UN humanitarian spokeswoman said the United Nations was not part of that deal and still called for the urgent evacuation of more than 1,000 sick and wounded people in eastern Ghouta.
The assault on Ghouta is one of the heaviest in the war, which enters its eighth year this week.
Thousands of families are sleeping in the open in the streets of the biggest town in the enclave, where there is no longer any room in packed cellars to shelter from government bombardment, local authorities said on Monday.
And in an apparent sign of local discontent with the rebel policy of holding out, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported that hundreds of people protested in the town of Kafr Batna to demand a deal to end the onslaught.
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