President Trump “promised a ‘big price’ to be paid for what he said was a chemical weapons attack that choked dozens of Syrians to death the day before, and a top White House official said the administration would not rule out a missile strike to retaliate against the government of President Bashar al-Assad,” the New York Times reports.

“In a tweet, Mr. Trump laid the blame for the attack partly on President Vladimir Putin of Russia, the first time since his election that he has criticized the Russian leader by name on Twitter.”

“President Trump has instructed military leaders to prepare to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, but has not set a date for them to do so,” the Washington Post reports.

“In a meeting with top national security officials Tuesday, Trump stressed that U.S. troops can be involved in current training tasks for local forces to ensure security in areas liberated from the Islamic State. But the president said that the U.S. mission would not extend beyond the destruction of the Islamic State.”

President Trump said the United States would leave Syria “very soon” and “let the other people take care of it,” the Washington Examiner reports.

He added: “We’re going to be coming out of there real soon, going back to our country where we belong, where we want to be.”

“U.S. forces killed scores of Russian contract soldiers in Syria last week in what may be the deadliest clash between citizens of the former foes since the Cold War,” Bloomberg reports.

“Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres during a private State Department meeting last week that the fate of Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad now lies in the hands of Russia, and that the Trump administration’s priority is limited to defeating the Islamic State,” Foreign Policy reports.

“The remarks offer the latest stop on a bumpy U.S. policy ride that has left international observers with a case of diplomatic whiplash as they try to figure out whether the Trump administration will insist that Assad step down from power. Nearly three months ago, Tillerson had insisted that Assad would have to leave office because of his alleged use of chemical weapons.”

The White House said that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria appeared to be preparing another chemical weapons attack, and warned that he would “pay a heavy price” if one took place, the New York Times reports.

“Several military officials who were reached late Monday said they had been caught off guard by the White House statement, but it was unclear how closely held the intelligence regarding a potential chemical attack was.”

Buzzfeed News: “Five defense officials… said they not only did not know where the potential chemical attack would come from, but they were unaware the White House was planning to release the statement.”

“The Trump administration accused the Syrian government of operating a crematorium to cover up what U.S. officials called ‘mass murders’ at the notorious Saydnaya prison outside Damascus,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The U.S. estimates the Syrian government is hanging as many as 50 detainees per day at the prison and burning some of the remains afterwards… The U.S. released several declassified satellite photos it says reveal the existence of the crematorium near the main prison.”

Speaking at a conference, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross “recalled the scene at Mar-a-Lago on April 6, when the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping was interrupted by the strike on Syria,” Variety reports.

Said Ross: “Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him, which was the launching of 59 missiles into Syria. It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment.”

As the crowd laughed, Ross added: “The thing was, it didn’t cost the president anything to have that entertainment.”

“Vilified by accusations of using a chemical bomb, Syria’s president intensified his counterpropaganda campaign on Thursday, suggesting that child actors had staged death scenes to malign him and that American warplanes had bombed a terrorist warehouse full of poison gases, killing hundreds of people,” the New York Times reports.

Said Assad: “We don’t know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhoun. Were they dead at all?”

“An airstrike by the American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State killed 18 Syrian fighters allied with the United States,” the New York Times reports.

“The strike, on Tuesday in Tabqah, Syria, was the third time in a month that American-led airstrikes may have killed civilians or allies, and it comes even as the Pentagon is investigating two previous airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of civilians in a mosque complex in Syria and in a building in the west of Mosul, Iraq.”

“President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your ‘powder’ for another (and more important) day!”

— Donald Trump, on Twitter, September 7, 2013.

“What I did should’ve been done by the Obama administration a long time before I did it. And you would’ve, I think Syria would’ve been a lot better off than it has been.”

— Trump, on Fox Business today.

The White House “accused the Russian government of engaging in a cover-up of the chemical weapons attack last week by Syrian forces that prompted American airstrikes, saying that United States intelligence and numerous contemporaneous reports confirmed that the Syrians used sarin gas on their own people,” the New York Times reports.

“In a declassified four-page report that details United States intelligence on the chemical weapons attack, the White House asserted that the Syrian and Russian governments have sought to confuse the world community about the assault through disinformation and ‘false narratives.'”