How US blitzed Syria last year
DONALD Trump ordered a missile strike on Syria just 77 days into his presidency, it emerged last night.
The US President authorised the firing of 59 cruise missiles at the regime’s Shayrat airbase last April.
The strike came in response to an attack – understood to have involved sarin nerve agents – on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.
The gas killed at least 72 people, including 20 children.
The cruise missile response was launched from the USS Ross and USS Porter in the eastern Mediterranean at around 3.45am local time and lasted for three to four minutes.
Each missile was programmed with a specific target, including the control tower, radar installations, fuelling stations and ammunition dumps.
Buildings thought to contain chemical weapons were deliberately not hit, to avoid leaks of toxic gas. The United States gave Russia up to 90 minutes of warning.
None of the estimated 100 Russian military personnel at the base were hurt.
The Government backed the missile blitz, deeming it ‘entirely appropriate’.
But the Kremlin responded furiously – accusing the United States of violating international law. Speaking at the time, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said that her country had taken ‘a very measured step’.
She added: ‘We are prepared to do more but we hope that will not be necessary.’ At the United Nations, Britain supported the US ‘because war crimes have consequences and the greatest war criminal of all, Bashar Assad, has now been put on notice,’ said Matthew Rycroft, the United Kingdom ambassador. Shortly after the strike Mr Trump warned he would be prepared to act again.
This was a startling U- turn because in the final days of his election campaign he had warned a ‘shooting war in Syria’ could bring the United States into a conflict with Russia that could ‘very well lead to World War III’. After Bashar Assad launched a devastating chemical weapons attack on civilians in the rebel town of Ghouta in 2013, Mr Trump warned Barack Obama of ‘hell to pay’ and rocketing debts if he responded with military action.