U.S. LAUNCHES STRIKES ON SYRIA
Navy fires cruise missiles in response to this week’s chemical weapons attack
President Trump WASHINGTON ordered a cruise missile strike against Syria early Friday in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack against a Syrian town that killed 86 people Tuesday, according to the Pentagon.
The attack, the first conventional assault on another country ordered by Trump, came a day af- ter he declared that the chemical weapons assault had “crossed many, many lines,” including the deaths of 27 children.
From his resort in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump said Syrian President Bashar Assad “launched a horrible chemical attack on innocent civilians using a deadly nerve agent. Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered at this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.
“Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched. It is in this vital national security interest of the Untied States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons,” Trump said.
Years of previous attempts to change Assad's behavior had failed, Trump said.
The missiles, fired from a U.S. Navy vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, struck multiple sites, includ-
ing the airfield where Syria based the warplanes used in the chemical attack, a Defense official said.
The attack essentially follows a plan the Pentagon set in September 2013, according to a senior Defense official not authorized to speak publicly about the operation. That plan was devised after President Obama set a “red line” on the use of chemical weapons. Syrian President Bashar Assad used the weapons that killed 1,400 civilians, but Obama did not order an attack. Instead, Assad agreed to turn over his stockpiles of chemical weapons, a pledge he reneged on.
In 2013, military planners planned to use land-attack cruise missiles launched from Navy destroyers cruising off shore from Syria. For weeks, the Navy had four destroyers floating off shore, waiting for the order to strike.
Using ships negates the need to seek permission from countries where U.S. warplanes are based. Land-attack Tomahawk missiles can travel 1,500 miles to strike their target and carry a warhead with 1,000 pounds of conventional explosives.
Among the target options Pentagon planners developed for Trump: the airfield, military command-and-control centers, air defense systems and troops.
Any attack puts at risk the hundreds of U.S. special operations troops in eastern Syria who advise local ground forces in their fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS. The concern, according to the official, is that Assad could order a counterstrike, targeting the Americans. There is also the risk that the attack could kill Russian troops who have been supporting the Assad regime.
The Pentagon, which has been bombing ISIS targets in Syria since 2014, can provide extra air patrols to protect those troops, but they still would be vulnerable to attacks by surface-to-surface missiles fired by Syrian forces.
The strike followed an attack on a rebel-held city in northern Syria with apparent chemical weapons that killed at least 86 people, 27 of them children. Autopsies on three Syrians who died after being brought to Turkey for treatment suggest the banned nerve agent sarin was used in the attack, the Turkish Health Ministry said. Turkey, which also is involved in the fighting, has long pushed for Assad’s ouster.
Russia said the deaths were caused by a Syrian strike on a terrorist chemical lab, but the United States, other nations and human rights groups rejected that claim as baseless.
Russian officials warned against military strikes. “We have to think about negative consequences, negative consequences, and all the responsibility if military action occurred will be on shoulders of those who initiated such doubtful and tragic enterprise,” said Vladimir Safronkov, Russia’s deputy envoy to the United Nations.
“All the responsibility ... will be on shoulders of those who initiated such doubtful and tragic enterprise.” Vladimir Safronkov, Russia’s deputy envoy to the United Nations