US faces 'Munich moment' on Syria

US Secretary of State John Kerry has told Democrat congressmen that they face a "Munich moment" as they weigh-up whether to approve strikes on Syria, NBC News reports.

The phrase is a reference to the 1938 Munich Pact that ceded control of part of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany - a moment that history has judged as the appeasement of Adolf Hitler that preceded the Holocaust and the Second World War.

The White House is prepared to rework language in a draft resolution authorising military force in Syria to address concerns from lawmakers, an administration official has said.

The official said the administration was open to changes "within the parameters that (the) president has previously explained."

Syrian refugees who were forced to flee their war-torn country told ITV News that the world has let them down by not staging an intervention to a chemical weapons attack.

UN: Seven million displaced by Syrian civil war

One refugee at the Zaatari camp in Jordan told our Correspondent Martin Geissler: "Assad has used chemicals 14 times at least. What is the matter with the world. Are they sleeping? Are they drunk? Are they on drugs?"

Watch: Refugees call for the world to act now on Syrian crisis

Seven million Syrian have been displaced by the country's civil war, the head of the UN refugee agency in Syria said.

Tarik Kurdi said that five million of the displaced are still in Syria, while around two million have fled to neighbouring countries.

Watch: Refugees call for the world to act now on Syrian crisis

He added that UN assistance had been a "drop in the sea of humanitarian need" and the funding gap is "very, very wide."

Russia has deployed a reconnaissance ship to the eastern Mediterranean in a bid to "to gather current information in the area of the escalating conflict", a military source told Interfax news agency.

The ship is understood to have left the naval base in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol late on Sunday.

The Defence Ministry declined to comment on the reports.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has dismissed America's evidence on Syria, Moscow Correspondent for BBC News Steve Rosenberg reported.

The US has diverted the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and other ships towards the Red Sea in preparation for a possible strike in Syria, defence officials have told Reuters.

The Nimitz carrier group had been in the Indian Ocean and was due to return to port in Washington, but has reportedly been redirected.

It has no specific orders to move to the eastern Mediterranean at this point, but is moving west in the Arabian Sea so it can do so if asked.

The US has already deployed an additional two destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean over the past week, bringing to the total to five.

USS San Antonio, an amphibious ship with 300 Marines and extensive communications equipment on board, has also been diverted to the area.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that he does not believe that Congress will "turn it's back" America's credibility in its response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria.

In an interview with NBC, he said: "The United States is strongest when Congress speaks with the President, when the American people are invested, because we have had an appropriate vetting of all the facts.

"I don't believe my former colleagues in the United States Senate, in the House, will turn their backs on all of our interests."

Read: US - Sarin used in Syria attacks

US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that new evidence has tested positive for use of sarin gas in the Syrian chemical attacks, Reuters reports, citing US broadcaster CNN.

He also voiced confidence that Congress "will do the right thing" on President Obama's request for approval of a unilateral military strike against the Syrian regime.

Read more: What is sarin?

Groups of demonstrators gathered in various cities in the United States yesterday to protest President Obama's proposed military action in Syria.

In Washington DC, protesters held banners outside the White House urging the president not to start another war.

Meanwhile, in New York protesters chanted "Hands Off Syria" as they marched down Times Square.