RNA - “A short time ago, I ordered the United States Armed Forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of” Syria, Trump said in a televised address from the White House on Friday evening.
He also warned Russia and Iran, which have been assisting Syria in its counter-terrorism campaign, to end their support for the Damascus government, but said, “hopefully, someday we’ll get along with Russia, and maybe even Iran, but maybe not.”
US officials said that Tomahawk cruise missiles and other types of bombs were used in the attack.
British Prime Minister Theresa May also said she authorized the British armed forces to conduct coordinated and targeted strikes, noting, “I have done so because I judge this action to be in Britain’s national interest.”
“This is not about intervening in a civil war. It is not about regime change. It is about a limited and targeted strike that does not further escalate tensions in the region and that does everything possible to prevent civilian casualties,” she claimed.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said that four RAF tornado jets took part in the attacks, striking a Syrian military facility near the Syrian province of Homs.
Likewise, French President Emanuel Macron also claimed the strikes target Syria’s capability to launch chemical attacks.
“We cannot tolerate the normalization of the use of chemical weapons,” he said in a statement issued shortly after huge explosions were heard in Damascus early Saturday followed by the sound of airplanes overhead.
France later said it fired cruise missiles from frigates in the Mediterranean and deployed fighter jets from home bases as part of its strikes on Syria.
The three countries used an alleged chemical attack in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus last week as a pretext for their military action. They blame the Syrian government for the attack, without offering any evidence.
Syria has strongly rejected any role in the suspected attack, which came just as the Syrian army was about to declare full victory against the militants operating in the region.
Russia said the chemical attack was staged by desperate militants to provoke further intervention in the conflict by the West.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit bases and chemical research centers around the capital Damascus.
Syrian state TV said the attack hit an army depot in the area of Homs and a research center near the capital Damascus, causing only material damage.
A Syrian official said the country’s air defense systems shot down 13 missiles.
A Reuters witness said that at least six loud explosions were heard in Damascus with smoke rising over the Syrian capital where a second witness said the Barzah district, the location of a major Syrian scientific research center, was also hit in the strikes.
US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said in a press briefing that the air strikes on targets in Syria were a “one time shot,” noting that future strikes will depend on whether the Syrian government uses chemical weapons.
The Pentagon chief added that the US and its allies struck Syria harder than they did last year.
General Joseph Dunford, the highest-ranking officer in the US military, said Russia's forces in Syria had been warned through existing "deconfliction" channels that Western planes would be in Syrian air space.
There have been contradictory reports on the number of missiles fired on Syria. A pro-Syrian government official said 30 missiles were fired, but the Pentagon put the number at 100.
NATO, Israel defend aggression
The NATO military alliance also voiced support for the military action.
“I support the actions taken by the United States, the United Kingdom and France,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement, claiming ... the campaign will reduce the ability of Syria to launch chemical attacks.
An Israeli official also defended the military attacks as justified and said, “This night, under America’s guidance, the United States, France and Britain acted accordingly,” AFP report, without naming him.
Canada and Turkey also voiced support for the airstrikes.
Syria comes under military attack on Trump's orders, 13 missiles shot down
The Russian Defense Ministry said Syria shot down a "significant number" of the missiles, and made it clear that Russia's missile defense systems were not involved in intercepting the missiles.
“More than 100 cruise missiles and air-to-land missiles were fired by the US, Britain and France from the sea and air at Syrian military and civilian targets,” the ministry said in a statement quoted by RIA Novosti news agency.
Reuters quoted an unnamed Syrian official as saying that a third of the missiles fired in the aggression were shot down. The source also said the targeted sites had earlier been evacuated upon Russia’s warning.
“We have absorbed the strike,” he said. “We had an early warning of the strike from the Russians ... and all military bases were evacuated a few days ago.”
"Around 110 missiles" were fired at Syrian targets in Damascus and its outskirts, the Syrian Army spokesperson in an official announcement on Syrian state TV.
Lebanon's Hezbollah movement praised the Syrian air defense for confronting "tripartite aggression".
Shortly after the attack, a group of Syrian people gathered at Umayyad Square in central Damascus to protest the air raids on their homeland. The protesters carried Russian, Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah flags.
The Syrian presidency posted a video that appeared to show President Bashar al- Assad arriving for work after the attack.
Syria's Foreign Ministry denounced the strikes as a "brutal, barbaric aggression" aimed to block a probe by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a global watchdog.
"The timing of the aggression coincides with the arrival of OPCW mission to Syria to investigate the alleged chemical attack in Douma, and mainly aims at hindering the mission's work and preempting its results," it said in comments carried by state news agency SANA.
The ministry said it was an "attempt to block the exposure of their lies and fabrications".
The attack, it said, will not have any impact on the Syrian army's resolve to press the fight against militants and restore control of the entire country.
"The barbaric aggression ... will not affect in any way the determination and insistence of the Syrian people and their heroic armed forces," SANA cited an official source in the ministry as saying.
"This aggression will only lead to inflaming tensions in the world" and threatens international security, it added.
According to Press TV, the agency had earlier slammed the attack as "a flagrant violation of international law, a breach of the international community's will, and it is doomed to fail."
SANA reported that the joint operation was targeting military installations around Damascus and near the central city of Homs.
It said three civilians were wounded in the Homs attacks but did not give a toll for Damascus or mention any combatant casualties.
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