The United States launched nearly five dozen cruise missiles at a
Syrian airfield early Friday in response to a chemical weapons attack
that killed dozens of civilians, the first direct assault on the
Damascus government since the beginning of that country's bloody civil
war in 2011.
"It is in the vital national security interest of the
United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly
chemical weapons," President Donald Trump said in a statement. "Tonight I
call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the
slaughter and bloodshed in Syria, and also to end terrorism of all kinds
and all types."
Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles targeted an airbase at
Shayrat, located outside Homs. The missiles targeted the base's
airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas, officials said.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said initial
indications were that the strike had "severely damaged or destroyed
Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment ... reducing
the Syrian Government's ability to deliver chemical weapons." There was
no immediate word about any casualties.
Trump said the base was used as the staging point for
Tuesday's chemical weapons attack on rebel-held territory, which killed
as many as 72 civilians, including women and children.
"Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women
and children," Trump said from Mar-a-Lago, Fla. "Even beautiful babies
were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God
should ever suffer such horror."
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the strike should cause a "big shift in Assad's calculus."
"Obviously the regime maintains a certain capability
to commit mass murder with chemical weapons beyond this air field,"
McMaster said. "But it was aimed at this airfield because we could trace
that attack back to this facility. It was not a small strike."
The U.S. missiles hit at 8:45 p.m. Eastern time, 3:45
a.m. Friday morning in Syria. Syrian state TV called the attack an
"aggression" that lead to "losses."
U.S. military officials said they informed their
Russian counterparts of the impending attack in an effort to avoid any
accident involving Russian forces. Nevertheless, Russia's Deputy U.N.
ambassador Vladimir Safronkov warned that any negative consequences from
the strikes would be on the "shoulders of those who initiated such a
doubtful and tragic enterprise."
Davis, the Pentagon spokesman, confirmed that "there
are Russians at the base," but said they had been warned "multiple
times" to leave. He did not know whether Russian aircraft were at the
base when the missiles hit.
The U.S. also notified its partner countries in the region prior to launching the strikes.
U.S. defense officials tell Fox News that two
warships based in the eastern Mediterranean, the USS Porter and the USS
Ross, have been training for the past two days to execute this mission.
“Our forward deployed ships give us the capability to
quickly respond to threats," said a Navy official. "These strikes in
Syria are a perfect example - this is why we're there."
The original plans called for two targets, the
airbase and a chemical weapons storage facility. However, Pentagon
planners decided late Thursday to target just the airbase.
As a candidate, Trump warned against against the U.S.
getting pulled into the Syrian civil war. But the president earlier in
the week appeared moved by the photos of children killed in the chemical
attack.
"I think what happened in Syria is one of the truly
egregious crimes and shouldn't have happened and it shouldn't be allowed
to happen," Trump told reporters traveling on Air Force One to Florida
earlier , where he was holding a two-day summit with Chinese President
Xi Jinping.
Late Thursday, a U.S. government official told Fox
News that the intelligence community has high confidence that the attack
was carried out by Syrian government aircraft. The official said the
analysis was consistent with eyewitness reports that fixed-wing aircraft
launched the strike.
The official described the use of sarin gas in the
attack as a watershed. The Assad government had agreed to disband its
chemical weapons capability by 2014 under an agreement coordinated with
the Obama administration and Russia. Tuesday's attack was considered a
breach of that agreement.
The Turkish ministry of health says the preliminary
results show the use of sarin gas. Sarin is a colorless, odorless liquid
and is highly volatile while moving from its liquid state to a gas.
Unlike chlorine, which the Assad government has used on a regular basis,
sarin does not dissipate quickly. The victims in Tuesday’s attack
showed all the hallmarks of a sarin attack – including twitching,
jerking and foaming at the mouth.
Trump's decision to attack Syria came
three-and-a-half years after President Barack Obama threatened Assad
with military action after an earlier chemical weapons attack killed
hundreds outside of Damascus. Obama had declared the use of such weapons
a "red line." At the time, several American ships in the Mediterranean
were poised to launch missiles, only for Obama to abruptly pull back
after key U.S. ally Britain and the U.S. Congress balked at his plan.
He opted instead for the Russian-backed plan that was supposed to remove and eliminate Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.
The world learned of the chemical attack earlier in
the week in footage that showed people dying in the streets and bodies
of children stacked in piles.
The U.S. show of force in Syria raises legal
questions. It's unclear what authority Trump is relying on to attack
another government. When Obama intervened in Libya in 2011, he used a
U.N. Security Council mandate and NATO's overall leadership of the
mission to argue that he had legal authority — arguments that many
Republicans opposed. Trump can't rely on either justification here.
Unclear also is whether Trump is adopting any broader
effort to combat Assad. Under Obama, the United States largely pulled
back from its support for so-called "moderate" rebels when Russia's
military intervention in September 2015 led them to suffer a series of
battlefield defeats. Instead, Obama sought to work with Russia on a
negotiated transition.
Trump and his top aides had acknowledged in recent
days the "reality" of Assad being in power, saying his ouster was no
longer a priority. But the chemical weapons attack seemed to spur a
rethink. In Florida on Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said
of Assad: "There's no role for him to govern the Syrian people."