US strikes spark fury in Russia
Moscow accuses US of bringing the two countries to the verge of a military clash.
We are prepared to do more, but we hope it will not be necessary. US ambassador Nikki Haley
The United States has warned Russia that it was prepared to take further steps in Syria after a day of mounting tension between Moscow and Washington.
The US strikes provoked fury in Moscow, which diverted a warship to the Mediterranean to protect the Syrian coast.
“The United States took a very measured step,” Nikki Haley, the US ambassador, told the UN Security Council. “We are prepared to do more, but we hope it will not be necessary.”
President Donald Trump announced the attack on the alShayran air base from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, where he was meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack,” he said. “No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”
Xi told Trump he understood the US reaction given the deaths of chil- dren, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Moscow vowed to bolster Bashar al-Assad’s defences against further US missile strikes.
The Admiral Grigorevich, a cruise missile-carrying frigate, passed through the Bosphorus en route to Russia’s Syrian navy base at Tartus. The Grigorevich, which carries stateof-the-art Kalibr cruise missiles, was taking part in joint exercises in the Black Sea with the Turkish navy when it was ordered to turn around.
“To protect key Syrian infrastructure a range of measures will be taken reinforce and improve the effectiveness of the Syrian armed forces air defence,” the Russian ministry of defence said.
The Kremlin also said it was suspending its air safety agreement with the US in response to missile strikes on a Syrian air base.
The October 2015 memorandum is designed to avoid clashes in the crowded airspace over Syria, with each side giving the other warning over planned strikes.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the attacks had fatally undermined Moscow’s initial trust in the new US administration and brought the countries to “the verge of a military clash”.
Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said Trump’s decision to directly target the Syrian regime inflicted further “considerable damage” to ties between Moscow and Washington “which are already in a lamentable state”.
Peskov said Putin, a staunch ally of the Syrian leader, regarded the US action as “aggression against a sovereign nation” on a “made-up pretext” and a cynical attempt to distract the world from civilian deaths in Iraq.
Other world leaders praised the US strikes and urged Putin to hold talks with Trump to prevent the Syria crisis escalating into a wider world conflict.
“The UK Government fully supports the US action, which we believe was an appropriate response to the barbaric chemical weapons attack launched by the Syrian regime, and is intended to deter further attacks,” Theresa May’s office said.
German chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said “President Assad alone” must bear responsibility for the strike.
“His repeated use of chemical weapons and his crimes against his own people demand sanctions which France and Germany already asked for in the summer of 2013,” they said.
Syrian military officials called the US airstrike “blatant aggression”, saying it had made America “a partner” of Isis as the base was used to conduct strikes against the jihadist group.
Six Syrian soldiers were reported to have been killed in Friday’s missile strike, which destroyed as much as 90 per cent of the base. Syrian officials said nine civilians, including four children, were also killed.
The Pentagon said it informed Russia of its plans to strike hours ahead, giving them time to remove any aircraft stationed at the base.
Syrian military sources said they also received intelligence about the strike in advance and moved equipment out of the base, in a sign the missile strikes were intended as a show of force rather than a serious attempt to damage the Syrian regime’s airstrike capabilities.
One senior Syrian rebel official from the Free Syrian Army called for international air strikes against all Syrian air bases, not just one. The White House worked to deflect any suggestion of wider US involvement to overthrow the Assad regime.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer described the strike as a punishment to remind the Assad regime that there has to be a “mutual level of human decency” in its behaviour.
Tillerson said the strike did not mean their wider policy on Syria had changed. He is expected to visit Moscow next week.
The Russian foreign ministry said it would demand that Tillerson explain his position.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is due to fly to Moscow tomorrow.