Minister: Yes, we were told... but US didn’t ask us to join in

BRITAIN led the way yesterday in backing Donald Trump’s ‘entirely appropriate’ missile blitz on a Syrian airfield.

Sir Michael Fallon said it was the ‘first test’ of the new US administration, which launched the raid in response to Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons attack against civilians.

The Defence Secretary revealed Britain had been told about the airstrikes in advance, but had not been asked to take part.

Playing down the prospects of increasing military involvement, Sir Michael insisted he did not see it as the start of a new campaign and said MPs would need to give permission if Britain were to get involved.

Downing Street said the missile attack on an Assad regime base was an ‘appropriate response to the barbaric chemical weapons attack launched by the Syrian regime, and is intended to deter further attacks’.

Sir Michael said yesterday British officials had ‘been in close contact with the American government over the last couple of days’.

He added that US defence secretary James Mattis – known as ‘Mad Dog’ – called him twice on Thursday ‘to discuss the various options… and, once the President had made his decision, again to give us advance notice of the strike’.

‘The Prime Minister has been kept informed throughout,’ he told Sky News.

Defence sources said Mr Mattis did not ring Sir Michael for approval but ‘out of courtesy given the special relationship’. The Defence Secretary said: ‘We’ve not been asked to be involved in this – this was not a matter for the coalition that’s in Syria and Iraq fighting Daesh [Islamic State]. This was a US operation, but let me emphasise again – we fully support it.’

He added: ‘We don’t see last night’s strike as the start of a different military campaign.

‘This was a very limited, very appropriate, narrowly focused action to attack the airfield, the aeroplanes and the equipment that the US believe was involved in the gas attack to deter the regime from future attacks and hopefully therefore save lives.’

A parliamentary vote would be needed for the RAF to bomb Assad’s military because MPs have only given approval for airstrikes in Syria against IS. In 2013, MPs voted against airstrikes on Assad’s regime.

Sir Michael said yesterday: ‘We have learnt that there is a price to be paid for not intervening, as when our Parliament voted against military action.’

In a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said on Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘This war has gone on far too long and needs to stop, and the people who can stop it are not ourselves, but Russia, which has influence over the regime. I hope Russia will learn from what happened last night.’

World leaders rallied around the US yesterday. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said in a joint statement that ‘Assad alone carries responsibility for these developments’ through his ‘repeated use of chemical weapons and his crimes against his own people’. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described this week’s atrocity in Idlib as a war crime and said such gruesome attacks cannot be permitted to continue with impunity. He added his country ‘fully supports’ the US action.

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said: ‘The Syrian regime bears the full responsibility for this. Any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable.’

European Council president Donald Tusk said in a tweet that the ‘US strikes show needed resolve against barbaric chemical attacks. EU will work with the US to end brutality in Syria’.

Turkey, a key player in the Syrian conflict, welcomed the strikes but said more action was needed. The strikes were also backed by Israel, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

‘There is a price to be paid for not intervening’