Bloodthirst: Trump bombs Syria declaring war on the free world

Syrian army denounces US launched nearly 60 missile strikes.

The United States on Friday fired dozens of cruise missiles at a government-controlled area in Syria, in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held (ie. “ISIS-held”) town.

The Pentagon said 59 Tomahawk missiles hit Shayrat airfield in Homs province, from where US officials believe the Syrian jets that dropped the chemicals in Khan Sheikhoun this week had taken off.

At least six people were killed in the strikes in the early hours of Friday, according to the Syrian army, which denounced the US “war action” as a violation of international law.

In a statement carried by the state-run SANA news agency and read on television, the military said the US strikes were done on a “pretext” of the Khan Sheikhoun attack, without any fact being disclosed. It also said the missile strikes, which inflicted heavy damage on the base, made the US a partner of “terrorist groups“.

The strikes, launched from two warships in the Mediterranean Sea, targeted the base’s airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas, officials said.

It was the first direct military action the US has taken against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the six-year war. “There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council,” US President Donald Trump said.

Syria’s opposition National Coalition (ie. ISIS) hailed the US strike, saying it puts an end to an age of “impunity” and should be just the beginning.

Russia, a key military ally of the Assad government, strongly condemned the strikes, saying Washington’s action would “inflict major damage on US-Russia ties”, according to Russian news agencies.

At least 86 people, including 27 children, were killed after a suspected poison gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday, according to the UK-based “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” (case of a single individual, based in the UK and affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood).

Rami Abdulrahman, alias the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights”

The attack drew widespread international condemnation and public revulsion, prompting the United Nations to pledge it would investigate it as a possible war crime.

The Syrian govenment denied carrying out the raid.

Russia has blamed the opposition, saying a government shell hit a building where rebels were producing chemical weapons. The rebels deny this.

The Pentagon said that Russia, which has been bombing rebel-held areas in Syria since 2015, had been notified ahead of the operation – but US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Washington had “sought no approval from Moscow”.

Earlier on Thursday, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations warned of “negative consequences” if the US took military action against Syria. “All responsibility, if military action occurred, will be on shoulders of those who initiated such doubtful and tragic enterprise,” Vladimir Soronkov told reporters in response to questions about possible US strikes.

Turkey said samples from victims of the attack indicate they were exposed to sarin, a highly toxic nerve agent. “I think what happened in Syria is a disgrace to humanity and President Bashar al-Assad is there, and I guess he’s running things, so something should happen,” Trump had told reporters earlier on Thursday.

Christopher Swift, professor of national security studies at Georgetown University, said the most important question was whether the Trump administration’s vision in launching the strikes was “an impulsive one or a strategic one”.

“It’s not clear to me, yet, whether this administration has thought through the implications of the actions they took this evening,” he told Al Jazeera. “If the president has a plan, then it will be interesting to see how that plan comes through. But if he doesn’t, he may have done more harm than good.”

At the time of the US raid, Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is holding two days of meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump said the strike on Syria was in the “vital national security interest” of the US.

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from Palm Beach, said: “This may be a one-off operation, but it will be quite difficult from now for Trump to get himself out of the argument over the future of Syria, the political future of Assad, the UN talks process in Geneva. The Trump administration is now at the centre of it all.”

Syria maintains it did not use chemical weapons, blaming opposition fighters for stockpiling the chemicals. “I stress, once again, that the Syrian Arab Army did not and will not use such weapons even against the terrorists who are targeting our people,” Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told reporters in Damascus on Thursday.

Putin: Syria strike illegal, damages US-Russia ties

The Russian government has condemned missile strikes by the US on a Syrian airbase, saying Washington’s action would “inflict major damage on US-Russia ties”, according to Russian news agencies.

In its first public response to missile strikes by the US, the Kremlin on Friday issued a strong statement labelling the US move as “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law”.

The US fired dozens of missiles at a Syrian airbase earlier on Friday from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched this week.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson of Russian president Vladimir Putin, said the missile strikes created a “serious obstacle” to creating an international coalition to defeat ISIL and said that Russia views the strikes as an attempt to deflect world attention from civilian deaths in Iraq – where scores of people died in a series of US-led coalition air strikes in Mosul last month.

Putin views the US strikes on Syria as aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of international law and on a made-up up pretext,” Peskov was cited as saying. “Washington’s step will inflict major damage on US-Russia ties.”

A statement by the Russian foreign ministry on Friday also announced that Moscow was halting an agreement with the US aimed at avoiding clashes between their forces and ensuring safety of flights in the skies over Syria in response to Washington’s missile strikes.

Russia, which has been bombing rebel-held areas in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad since September 2015, said the US strike had been carried out on an “invented pretext” and reiterated its view that the Syrian army did not possess chemical weapons.

Russia has maintained that Syrian air strikes hit a depot where anti-Assad rebels were building chemical weapons – a claim the US has vigorously disputed.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking just after the strikes were announced, said Russia had “failed in its responsibility” to deliver on a 2013 deal it helped broker to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

Tillerson is set to make the first visit to Russia by a Trump administration official next week.

 

Source: Al-Jazeera