3 September 2013 Last updated at 12:42 ET
Syria crisis: Obama wins backing for military strike

President Barack Obama has won backing from key US political figures on his plans for a military strike on Syria.

Mr Obama said a "limited" strike was needed to degrade President Bashar al-Assad's capabilities, in response to a deadly chemical weapons attack.

Key Republican leaders John Boehner and Eric Cantor both signalled their support for military action. Congress is expected to vote next week.

The UN earlier confirmed that more than two million Syrians were now refugees.

More than 100,000 people are thought to have died since the uprising against President Assad began in March 2011.

'Broader strategy'

President Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden met House Speaker John Boehner, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and the chairmen and ranking members from the national security committees in Washington on Tuesday.

Mr Boehner signalled his support for Mr Obama's call for action, saying that only the US had the capacity to stop President Assad. Mr Boehner urged his colleagues in Congress to follow suit.

Mr Cantor, the House of Representatives majority leader, said he also backed Mr Obama.

Mr Cantor said: "Assad's Syria, a state sponsor of terrorism, is the epitome of a rogue state, and it has long posed a direct threat to American interests and to our partners."

Ms Pelosi said she did not believe Congress would reject a resolution calling for force.

Mr Obama said that Mr Assad had to be held accountable for the chemical attack and that he was confident Congress would back him.

He said he was proposing military action that would degrade President Assad's capacity to use chemical weapons "now and in the future".

"What we are envisioning is something limited. It is something proportional," the president said.

"At the same time we have a broader strategy that will allow us to upgrade the capabilities of the opposition."

Secretary of State John Kerry, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and the top US military officer, Gen Martin Dempsey, are to appear later on Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

There will also be a classified briefing for all members of Congress.

Two of Mr Obama's fiercest foreign policy critics, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have already backed his stance.

France has also strongly backed the US plan for military action.

President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday: "When a chemical massacre takes place, when the world is informed of it, when the evidence is delivered, when the guilty parties are known, then there must be an answer."

He called for Europe to unite on the issue, but said he would wait for the Congress vote.

If Congress did not support military action France "would not act alone", he said.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron had also backed Mr Obama, but Parliament rejected a resolution on military action.

The US has put the death toll from the attack on the outskirts of Damascus on 21 August at 1,429, including 426 children, though other countries and organisations have given lower figures.

The Syrian government denies any involvement.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro on Monday, President Assad said such an action would have been "illogical".

He warned that foreign military action could ignite a wider regional conflict.

As tensions rose on Tuesday, a senior Israeli defence official confirmed to the BBC that a missile had been fired to test its defence systems.

The BBC's Richard Galpin in Jerusalem says it is a sign that Israel is taking very seriously the possibility that any US air strikes could lead to retaliatory attacks on Israel - either by Syria itself or by its ally, the Shia militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.

'Overwhelming burden'
Earlier, the UN refugee agency said that more than two million Syrians were now registered as refugees, after the total went up by a million in the past six months.

It said in a statement: "Syria is haemorrhaging women, children and men who cross borders often with little more than the clothes on their backs."

Around half of those forced to leave are children, UN agencies estimate, with about three-quarters of them under 11.

As well as those who have left the country, a further 4.25 million have been displaced within Syria, the UNHCR says, meaning that more people from Syria are now forcibly displaced than from other country.

Pointing out that more than 97% of Syria's refugees are being hosted by countries in the surrounding region, the UNHCR said the influx was "placing an overwhelming burden on their infrastructures, economies and societies".

It appealed again for "massive international support".

On Tuesday, Sweden announced it would become the first European country to grant asylum to all Syrian refugees who apply. They will get permanent resident status.

Sweden has taken in 14,700 asylum seekers from Syria since 2012.

The UN says this is the worst refugee crisis for 20 years, with numbers not seen since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23950253

syria has killed 100k, but only the last 1k matter.

i am really starting to hate this country.

We are the country. We obviously have not done enough to make sure we get the right people in office. Because of things like this we can not just find a person that we think is best for the domestic issues. We need to find a person who is not an arrogant bully on foreign affairs. Of course, that's hard to do when they turn around and do the same things they campaigned against. We need to try harder. We need to make sure, too, that they don't commit us to action so quickly.

i didn't vote for him, but i honestly thought Obama was the right person. how do they find people that differ so little when it comes to foreign policy? it is amazing that there is NO anti-war candidate anymore.

Think USian propaganda that's pounded into US citizens from the day they're born.