UN experts head to suspected Syria chemical attack site

UN inspectors headed today to the site of a suspected deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria as the West mulled possible military action but President Bashar al-Assad warned that any strike would fail.

Britain said the West could act even without full UN Security Council backing after last week's alleged gas attack near Damascus which the Syrian opposition said killed hundreds of civilians.

Washington and its allies have pointed the finger of blame at Assad's regime for the alleged attack, which has sharply escalated tensions over a conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people.

Assad, in an interview with a Russian newspaper published today, angrily denied the accusations as an 'insult to common sense' and said any military action was doomed to failure.

'The United States faces failure just like in all the previous wars they waged,' he said.

And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov -- whose government is the Damascus regime's close ally -- warned his US counterpart John Kerry of the 'extremely dangerous consequences' of launching military action.

The Syrian authorities approved the UN inspection of the site in Ghouta east of Damascus yesterday, but US officials said it was too little, too late, arguing that persistent shelling there in recent days had 'corrupted' the site.

Mortar shells also hit a mosque in the centre of Damascus today, the Syrian news agency SANA said, blaming 'terrorists', its term for rebel fighters.

The international community has long been divided over how to respond to the conflict, with Russia and China repeatedly blocking UN Security Council resolutions.

US President Barack Obama has been loath to order US military action to protect civilians in Syria, fearing being drawn into a vicious civil war, soon after he extracted US troops from Iraq.

But revulsion over video footage and grisly photographs of dead children blanketing the world's media has seen mounting pressure on the international community.

'Is it possible to respond to chemical weapons without complete unity on the UN Security Council? I would argue yes,' British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC.

Asked about the possibility of military strikes this week, Hague said: 'I'm not going to rule anything in or out, I'm not going to speculate about that in public.'

France said the West would decide in the coming days on a response.

'The options are open. The only option that I do not envisage is to do nothing,' Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on French radio.