UK: No public mood for Syria airstrikes

The British government says it has no plans to repeat missile strikes on Syria, but it will consider further action if President Bashar al-Assad again uses chemical weapons against his own people.

"I hope that this will be a deterrent to him and obviously I hope that it will mean no further humanitarian suffering by the Syrian people as a result of the use of chemical weapons," said UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

"If he should be so cruel and so reckless as to do it again, now that is a separate point. That's a separate proposition and we would have to look, together with our colleagues, at what the options were then."

Opinion polls suggest most Britons do not support military action.

Carried out by Survation, one survey of just over 2,000 people taken after the strikes were launched, found that 40 percent were opposed. Some 36 percent were in favour of the military action.


Still scarred by Iraq, many in the UK fear getting embroiled in another costly conflict in the Middle East.

with Reuters