Russia and Syria have condemned the first US military strike against the Syrian regime, launched after a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians earlier in the week.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, denounced the strike on a Syrian airfield as “act of aggression” Friday and said it violated international law. Western leaders backed the US action, saying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had brought it on himself.
On the orders of President Donald Trump, 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from US warships in the eastern Mediterranean. The missiles were directed at the Shayrat airfield, believed by the US to be the base for warplanes that carried out the chemical attack on a rebel-held town in Idlib on Tuesday.
Nine people, including four children, in two villages were killed in the strike, Syrian state news agency SANA reported. It was not clear whether the figure included the six deaths announced earlier by the Syrian military or was in addition to those.
Trump said he ordered the operation after Tuesday’s attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed more than 80 people. Pictures from the aftermath of the attack, showing dead and injured children, shocked the world.
Western nations blamed the Syrian regime for the attack. But Russia said it did not believe the Syrian government held any chemical weapons.
Putin denounced the US action as “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of the norms of international law under a far-fetched pretext.” He said the strikes “dealt a serious blow to Russian-US relations” and that their aim was to distract from the civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Iraq, a statement from his press office said.
Dozens of people died in Tuesday’s chemical attack.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the United States of seeking a pretext for regime change. “I am particularly disappointed by the way this damages US-Russia relations,” he said, but added that he didn’t think it would “lead to an irreversible situation.”
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the United States had carried out an “unjust and unabashed assault” against Syria which “shows nothing but short-sightedness, a narrowness of vision and a blindness to political and military realities.”
He also said the attack had increased the regime’s resolve to “crush” terrorists in Syria — the term it uses for all opposition forces.
A statement from Syria’s general military command said the strikes caused “extensive material damage” and undermined counterterror operations by the Syrian army. The operation “makes the United States of America a partner of ISIS, Nusra Front and other terrorist organizations who — since the first day of this unjust war on Syria — have been attacking Syrian army positions and Syrian military bases.”
Syrian TV aired footage of the aftermath of the strike that showed smoke still rising up from the base.
Maj. Issam al-Reis, spokesman for the opposition Free Syrian Army’s Southern Front, welcomed the US action and called for “the destruction of all tools of murder that Bashar al Assad’s regime uses.”
The strike was the first direct military action taken by the US against the Assad regime since the start of the country’s six-year civil war. It represents a substantial escalation of the US military campaign in the region.
Pentagon: ‘Severe damage’
Trump announced the strikes in a brief statement to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort, saying there was “no doubt” that Syria had used chemical weapons in the attack on Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday. “Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically,” he said.
The Pentagon said the strike, which began at 8:40 p.m. ET Thursday (3:40 a.m. local time Friday), targeted aircraft, storage facilities and other logistical materials.
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