Officials: Russia could stop Syria
U. S. is ‘ prepared to do more’ to stop civil war if brutality doesn’t cease
Russia could have stopped its Syrian ally from conducting Tuesday’s poison gas attack that killed dozens of civilians but did not, U. S. officials said Friday.
That assessment, from a senior military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, went further than Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s accusation that Russia was incompetent in enforcing an agreement from 2013, under which Syria was to give up its chemical weapons.
The Trump administration is trying to stanch the deepening humanitarian crisis in Syria and prevent President Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons. Those actions come at the risk of increased friction withMoscow, which has supported the Assad regime and condemned the U. S. airstrikes.
The U. S. strikes were carefully designed to avoid hitting Russian personnel at the Syrian air base they targeted, U. S. officials said Friday. They said the presence of as many as 100 Russians at the base used to launch Tuesday’s chemical attack raises questions about whether Russia knew about the attacks and failed to stop them. The Defense officials were not authorized to speak publicly about the operation.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer deflected questions about whether the U. S. sought to send a signal to Russia. “The actions that were taken were against the Assad regime, and I’m not going to say anything more than that,” he said.
President Trump is “prepared to do more” to stop the civil war in Syria if Russia cannot convince Assad to abide by cease- fire agreements, U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the U. N. Security Council on Friday.
The U. S. missile attack, launched at 7: 40 p. m. ET Thursday, was Trump’s first major military action against another country. Trump had considered Syria an ally of convenience in the fight against the Islamic State, but his reluctance to involve U. S. forces there began to melt Tuesday morning, when he received details of the chemical attack.
The strike, which Pentagon officials and Spicer called successful, led to a Syrian condemnation Friday. Assad’s government called it a “blatant act of aggression.” Nine civilians were killed, including four children, when the projectiles hit the base and nearby villages, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported. Several others were injured.
Trump said he ordered the strikes in retaliation for an Assad regime attack that used sarin, a nerve agent, on the rebelheld town of Khan Sheikhoun. That attack killed 86 people Tuesday, including 27 children.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said six Syrian jets were destroyed, but the air base’s runway was intact and only 23 of the 59 missiles had reached the base.
The U. S. senior military officers flatly rejected that assessment, saying all 59 cruise missiles struck their targets, destroying an estimated 20 aircraft, hangars and other facilities at the airfield.
Assad allies Russia and Iran also condemned the U. S. strikes, saying they violated international law. “It is an act of aggression under a completely farfetched pretext,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. “This is reminiscent of the situation in 2003, when the U. S. and the U. K., along with some of their allies, invaded Iraq without the consent of the U. N. Security Council and in violation of international law.”
It’s unclear how much the Kremlin knew about the U. S. strikes before they happened. The Kremlin said it was warned in advance; Tillerson said “there were no discussions or prior contacts, nor have there been any since the attack, withMoscow.”
But there were certainly military- tomilitary communications with Russian forces in the region, under a process known as “de- confliction.” A hotline was set up during the Obama administration to ensure that U. S. and Russian forces don’t accidentally clash when taking action against Islamic State targets. Despite Thursday’s action, Russia agreed to maintain that hotline, the two Defense officials said.