British Prime Minister Theresa May is ready to confirm military intervention into Syria and no parliamentary approval will be required, the BBC reported late Wednesday.
The Daily Telegraph, on the other hand, reporter later on Wednesday that Prime Minister May has not reached final decision on whether Britain would join any air strikes but wants to be able to act swiftly.
The newspaper also said that May has ordered British submarines to move within missile range of Syria in readiness for strikes against Assad regime forces that could begin as early as Thursday night.
The Premier said earlier in the day that all indications were that the Assad regime was responsible for a chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma and that such shocking assaults could not go unchallenged.
U.S. President Donald Trump warned Russia on Wednesday of imminent military action in Syria over a suspected poison gas attack, declaring that missiles "will be coming" and lambasting Moscow for standing by Bashar Assad.
"The chemical weapons attack that took place on Saturday in Douma in Syria was a shocking and barbaric act," May told reporters in the central English city of Birmingham. "The use of chemical weapons cannot go unchallenged."
"All the indications are that the Syrian regime was responsible."
May declined to say if she was concerned by Trump's tweet, reiterating that Britain was working with allies to work out exactly what had happened.
"We'll be working with our closest allies to consider how we can ensure that those responsible are held to account, and also how we can prevent and deter the humanitarian catastrophe of the use of chemical weapons in the future," May said.
"We're rapidly reaching an understanding of what happened on the ground."
The United States, France and Britain have been consulting about launching a military strike, but May has not confirmed whether U.K. forces will participate directly.
Britain's Parliament is in recess until Monday. While May does not legally require Parliament's backing for military action, it is conventional for lawmakers to be given a vote.
Meanwhile, opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Wednesday that the British parliament should be given a say on any military action Prime Minister May wants to take in response to the suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria.
"Parliament should always be given a say on military action," Corbyn told the BBC when asked about Syria.
"Obviously the situation is very serious, obviously there has to be, now, a demand for a political process to end the war in Syria. We cannot risk an escalation even further than it's gone already."
In 2013, Parliament defeated a call by then-Prime Minister David Cameron for air strikes in response to an earlier chemical attack in Syria.
