Summary
We’re going to close our rolling coverage of the first direct military strikes by the US against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, in what Donald Trump described as necessary retaliation for a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians, including children, earlier this week.
Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles, launched before dawn from warships in the eastern Mediterranean, threatened hopes for Russian-American rapprochement just ahead of the first major meeting between Washington, which has armed anti-Assad rebels, and Moscow, which has held Assad up against them.
Secretary of state Rex Tillerson will travel to Moscow on Tuesday, just three days after the US ambassador to the UN said Russia shouldered blame in the chemical weapons attack.
- Donald Trump ordered the attacks on Thursday afternoon and the strikes took place at about 7.40pm local time while he had dinner in south Florida with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Afterward Trump told the American people it is in their “vital national security interest” to “prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons”.
- The Pentagon alerted Russian military counterparts to minimize the risk of conflict. A spokesman said the strike appeared to have “severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft”. Russian authorities disputed the claim, saying many missiles missed their targets. By Friday afternoon the base was already launching flights again, according to AFP.
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The American ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said the US “took a very measured step” and “we are prepared to do more”. She added that Iran and Russia bore “heavy responsibility” for the chemical attack, either by allowing Assad to use such weapons or through “incompetent” oversight of their ally’s obligations. “The world is waiting for Russia to reconsider its misplaced alliance with Bashar al-Assad,” she said. “The United States will no longer wait.”
- A spokesman for Vladimir Putin said the US had violated international law “under a false pretext”, and UN deputy ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, warned “extremely serious” consequences could follow the strike. The prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, said the action “completely ruined relations”. Russia’s military announced it would bolster Assad’s air defenses, and it was not clear whether it would cut off the “deconfliction” hotline it uses to avoid clashes between US and Russian forces.
- Assad’s office said the strike was “foolish and irresponsible” and promised to redouble its efforts against rebels. His ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, claimed on Friday that “a number of martyrs, including women and children” were killed by the attack. An unnamed Syrian official told the AP that at least seven people were killed and nine wounded. Jaafari also claimed that the Syrian government had no chemical weapons.
- Syrian rebels welcomed the strike and called for more. “Hitting one airbase is not enough – there are 26 airbases that target civilians,” a key figure in the Army of Islam faction, Mohamed Alloush, said on Twitter. “The whole world should save the Syrian people from the clutches of the killer Bashar and his aides.”
- The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said the strikes did not indicate a shift in US policy toward Syria, even though a few days earlier American diplomats had said Assad’s ouster was no longer a priority. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said the strikes had a limited intent – to deter chemical weapons – and were of a piece with Trump’s so-called “America first” policy.
- The UK, Australia, Israel and Saudi Arabia were among the US allies that voiced support for the strikes, while Italy and Japan said they understood the action.
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The US military strikes against the Syrian airbase had no “direct consequence” on aid operations in Syria, said the UN coordinator for humanitarian affairs, Jens Laerke. A UN human rights office spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, said on Friday at a UN briefing that the use of chemical weapons, if confirmed, would amount to a war crime.
Updated
Members of Congress, led in part by representative John Conyers, have questioned the legality of the president’s decision to launch missiles against Bashar al-Assad. The concern follows a burst of support for the strikes – from Republican and Democratic leaders alike – on the night they were ordered.
Conyers has released a statement:
“There is no question that the United States must do more to relieve the suffering of the civilians trapped in Syria’s civil war.
“But before we can debate the wisdom of a single unilateral strike on a Syrian air field, President Trump must answer a number of threshold answers:
“First, what is the legal basis for the President’s military intervention in Syria? The President is bound by the US Constitution, the War Powers Resolution, and the international laws of armed conflict—but Congress has never authorized military action against the Assad regime, and the President took this action without approval by the United Nations or any claim of self-defense.
“Second, what is the President’s plan for Syria going forward? For years, Donald Trump warned President Obama not to get involved in Syria. The central theme of his campaign was ‘America First.’ He is not empowered to commit our troops to a new war on a whim, however brutal the actions of President Assad.
“Finally, how does President Trump reconcile this action with the other policies of his Administration? Like the President, I am haunted by the images of the children who have been murdered in this civil war. Like many of my colleagues, I wonder if the President understands that the refugees he hopes to ban from entry to the United States seek shelter from the same conflict.
“I join with Leader Pelosi in her request to reconvene the House immediately to demand answers to these questions.”
Trump did not have clear authority under international law to order the strikes, according to law professors and attorneys.
Tillerson has called Russia’s reaction to the US missile strikes “very disappointing” but “not all that surprising”, the AP reports, after the secretary of state spoke briefly with reporters at the south Florida summit with a Chinese delegation staying at Donald Trump’s resort, Mar-a-Lago.
The Kremlin condemned the strike as an “act of aggression” against a sovereign state, and a violation of international law. At the UN, Russia’s representative said the security council should condemn air strikes in Iraq, by the US-led coalition, that had killed scores of civilians last month, and that the US had not shown proof that Syria was responsible for the chemical weapons.
According to the AP, Tillerson said that Russia’s reaction shows that nation’s continued support for a regime that “carries out these types of horrendous attacks on their own people.”
The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has reiterated the message that UN ambassador Nikki Haley gave to the security council earlier on Friday: Russia bears responsibility for last week’s chemical weapons attack by Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
Russia and Syria have claimed that the US has jumped to conclusions and does not actually know who was responsible for the attack, although Pentagon officials have said they watched, on radar, warplanes carry out the strikes from Shayrat airbase onto the town of Khan Sheikhun.
Tillerson: Russia has failed in its responsibility to deliver on the 2013 CW commitment. So either Russia has been complicit or incompetent. pic.twitter.com/0staywFdGY
— U.S. Embassy Syria (@USEmbassySyria) April 7, 2017
Before Donald Trump decided that the US should retaliate against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, he frequently argued that the United States has little responsibility, if any, to take any action in Syria.
In 2013 and 2014, he repeatedly said that Barack Obama would be “very foolish” to take military action in Syria. “Syria is NOT our problem,” he wrote in May 2013.
In August: “How bad has our “leader” made us look on Syria. Stay out of Syria, we don’t have the leadership to win wars or even strategize.”
Followed by: “What will we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval.”
Trump has not gained congressional approval for the missile strikes he ordered on Thursday night.
In September: “President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your “powder” for another (and more important) day!”
“Do NOT attack Syria, fix USA,” he continued. “What I am saying is stay out of Syria.”
HR McMaster, the national security adviser for Donald Trump who replaced Michael Flynn, was central to the decision to attack the Syrian airbase near Homs, according to my colleagues Spencer Ackerman and Ewen MacAskill.
McMaster was posted in 2005 at the town of Tal Afar, which was held by jihadi forces near the Syrian border. Then a colonel “and an unorthodox military thinker”, they write, McMaster immersed himself in Iraqi culture and tried to portray the US “not as an occupier, but a protector of the town’s 150,000 inhabitants”.
But he combined this “hearts and minds” approach with tough, disciplined military engagement. He had a large sand berm built around the town to control entry and exit, and retook neighbourhoods house by house. The list of names on a memorial in the middle of the base testified to the high casualty rate among his Third Armoured Cavalry Regiment.
The strategy applied in Tal Afar – to take the local population with you and, when a decision to use military force is made, go in hard – came to be adopted by the US military across Iraq in 2007, an expansion of American forces that became known as the Iraqi “surge”.
McMaster, 54, was born in Philadelphia, and in part rose to his service in 1991, when he led nine tanks against an estimated 80 tanks and vehicles under Saddam Hussein’s military – the American tanks destroyed them inferior Iraqi vehicles, with no US casualties. Later in the decade McMaster wrote a book, Dereliction of Duty, that condemned the failures of American leadership in Vietnam, in particular, in his view, compromises that doomed the war effort.
People close to McMaster say that an early priority for the three-star general was to marginalise Bannon and re-empower the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and director of national intelligence, whose places on the principals’ committee of the national security council Bannon had taken. At a stroke, McMaster accomplished that this week, establishing his supremacy over the homeland security and economic councils for good measure, and cementing his alliances with joint chiefs chairman General Joe Dunford and intelligence chief Dan Coats.
McMaster’s camp has been crowing about their man’s victory. They point to a critical behind-the-scenes ally: defence secretary James Mattis, who has played a similar role to McMaster at the Pentagon and strikes similar notes on hostility towards Russia, openness to Nato and reassurance to South Korea and Japan.
Both men are positioning themselves as reliable points of contact to US allies confused by the mercurial Trump, but without contradicting the president directly.
You can read more about McMaster, and the ultimate fate of Tal Afar, through the link below.
What we know
Early Friday morning local time from warships in the eastern Mediterranean, the United States launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian government airfield near Homs, in retaliation for a Syrian chemical weapons attack earlier this week that killed dozens of civilians, including children.
The missiles were the first direct attack against President Bashar al-Assad over six years of Syria’s civil war, after years warnings over humanitarian abuses, including bombing hospitals and the use of the sarin nerve agent and chlorine gas.
- Donald Trump ordered the attacks on Thursday afternoon, en route to a south Florida summit with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. The strikes took place at about 7.40pm local time while the presidents had dinner. Afterward Trump told the American people it is in their “vital national security interest” to “prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons”.
- The Pentagon alerted Russian military counterparts to minimize the risk of conflict. A spokesman said the strike appeared to have “severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft” and reduced their ability to use chemical weapons. Russian authorities disputed the claim, saying many missiles missed their targets. By Friday afternoon the base was already launching flights again, according to AFP.
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The American ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said the US “took a very measured step” but “we are prepared to do more”, should Assad use chemical weapons again. She added that Iran and Russia bore “heavy responsibility” for the chemical attack, either by allowing Assad to use such weapons or “incompetent” oversight of their ally’s obligations. “The world is waiting for Russia to reconsider its misplaced alliance with Bashar al-Assad,” she said. “The United States will no longer wait.”
- A spokesman for Vladimir Putin said the US had violated international law “under a false pretext”, and UN deputy ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, warned “extremely serious” consequences could follow the strike. The prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, said the action was unjustified and “completely ruined relations”. Russia’s military announced it would bolster Assad’s air defenses, but it was not clear whether it would cut off the “deconfliction” hotline it uses to avoid clashes between US and Russian forces.
- Assad’s office said the strike was “foolish and irresponsible” and promised to redouble its efforts against rebels. His ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, claimed on Friday that “a number of martyrs, including women and children” were killed by the attack. An unnamed Syrian official told the AP that at least seven people were killed and nine wounded. Jaafari also claimed that the Syrian government had no chemical weapons.
- Syrian rebels welcomed the strike and called for more. “Hitting one airbase is not enough – there are 26 airbases that target civilians,” a key figure in the Army of Islam faction, Mohamed Alloush, said on Twitter. “The whole world should save the Syrian people from the clutches of the killer Bashar and his aides.”
- The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said the strikes did not indicate a shift in US policy toward Syria, even though a few days earlier American diplomats had said Assad’s ouster was no longer a priority. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said the strikes had a limited intent – to deter chemical weapons – and were of a piece with Trump’s so-called “America first” policy.
- The UK, Australia, Israel and Saudi Arabia were among the US allies that voiced support for the strikes, while Italy and Japan said they understood the action.
- The UN coordinator for humanitarian affairs, Jens Laerke, says it had no sign that US military strikes against the Syrian airbase had had “any direct consequence” on overall aid operations in Syria. A UN human rights office spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, said on Friday at a UN briefing that the use of chemical weapons, if confirmed, would amount to a war crime.
Updated
The airbase attacked on Thursday night by the United States is already launching new flights, according to Agence France-Presse, citing a group that monitors the Syrian civil war.
AFP reports:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two warplanes “took off from inside the Shayrat base, which is partially back in service, and struck targets near Palmyra”.
The monitor could not specify whether they were Syrian or Russian planes, or what they had bombed.
Early on Friday morning, the US military fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Shayrat air field in response to a suspected chemical attack this week that has been widely blamed on the Damascus regime.
A Syrian military source told AFP that Syria’s armed forces were warned about possible US military action hours before the strike took place.
“We took precautions in more than one military point, including in the Shayrat airbase. We moved a number of airplanes towards other areas,” the source said.
US officials said Russia’s military in Syria had been informed of the strike beforehand in order to avoid casualties that could prompt a broader crisis.
The US said the missiles targeted radars, aircraft, and air defence systems and destroyed around 20 Syrian planes, but said the runway was intact.
Russia’s military said the strike had an “extremely low” military impact, with fewer than half of the 59 missiles reaching the airbase.
Updated
The Pentagon has confirmed that it alerted Russian military counterparts about the strikes through a hotline, but the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, has said that there was no political contact with the Kremlin.
Spicer also told reporters that Trump’s attitude toward Syria had “evolved” over his 78 days in office, especially thanks to the “clear images that were available” and “that everybody in the world could see”.
“It was very disturbing and tragic and moving to him,” Spicer said. “ “He had a very deliberative process of asking his national security team to develop options.”
Spicer insisted that the intent of the actions were limited in scope: a message that Bashar al-Assad “should abide by the agreement they made not to use chemical weapons”.
The press secretary also invoked support from allies to tamp down concern that the missile strikes could further entangle nations in a bloody, chaotic civil war.
“If you’ve seen the response from the world community,” Spicer said, “they understand that the US acted appropriately and in most cases there is widespread praise from around the globe for the president’s actions.”
He said the US strikes did not preclude its willingness to work with Russia on counter-terrorism operations – though Russia and Syria have described all anti-Assad rebels, whether jihadi or not, as terrorists.
“There can be a shared commitment to defeat Isis and also agree that you can’t gas your own people,” Spicer said. “I think this was a clear response on humanitarian purposes that has been widely praised.”
Finally, he said that Trump’s meetings with Xi Jinping were going well. “We’re in the midst of a very terrific visit.”
Updated
Missiles were launched during Donald Trump’s dinner with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, has told reporters.
At a quick briefing in south Florida, Spicer gave some details of the timeline to the airstrikes, and how they relate to Trump’s policy. The press pool reports:
Trump first heard about the gas attack in Syria at his president’s daily briefing on Tuesday at about 10.30am. He asked his team for a range of options. There was another meeting at 8pm on Tuesday at the White House on options and again on Wednesday morning with restricted principals.
Trump met again at 3pm on Wednesday and decided to reconvene on Thursday for a decision. On route to Florida on Thursday, at about 1.30pm, he spoke through secured video conference with his team and again at 4pm with [secretary of state] Rex Tillerson and others in a secure room in Palm Beach.
That’s when the “president gave the OK to move ahead”.
Missiles were launched at 7:40pm during dinner.
Foreign leaders and members of Congress were told at about 8.30pm, Spicer said, and Trump told Xi about the strikes during dinner. Afterward he met with the secretaries of state and defense and spoke with the joint chiefs, as they discussed what Spicer called an “evolving process”.
Although the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said that the US was “prepared” to do more strikes, Spicer said the president was “not going to telegraph his next move”.
He insisted that the strikes were “justified and proportional”, motivated by national security of the region and humanitarian concerns, and that the decision “absolutely” squares with Trump’s “America first” mantra.
Updated
Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to the UN, accuses the US of a “barbaric and flagrant act” that violates international law.
The strikes on a military airfield, he says, lead to “a number of martyrs, including women and children, and wide-ranging material damage”. It remains unclear what damage or casualties were caused by the strikes: the White House has said all 59 missiles hit their targets, while Russian authorities have claimed that fewer than half did.
Nevertheless Jaafari says: “This treacherous act of aggression is a grave violation of the charter of the United Nations as well as all international laws and norms.”
He claims – despite Tuesday’s chemical weapons strikes, the Syrian government’s past stockpiles and the word of US defense officials who said they had watched government planes make the strikes – that Assad’s government “does not have chemical weapons in the first place”.
Such claims by the US, Jaafari says, were “attempts to justify it with empty pretexts … without genuine knowledge of what happened, without identifying whom was responsible”.
He then accuses the US of being “a partner of Isil and Jabhat al-Nusra” by way of its support for rebels who oppose Assad’s government.
Updated
US ambassador: 'Russia bears considerable responsibility'
Haley then casts blame on Russia and Iran, saying Bashar al-Assad “was not the only guilty party”.
“The Iranian government bears a significant responsibility,” she says, for having “propped up” Assad since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.
“The Russian government also bears considerable responsibility,” she continues. “Every time Assad has crossed the line of human decency, Russia has stood beside him.”
She then denounces Russia for its seven decision to veto resolutions against Assad, and for its threat to veto another, which she says is “covering up for the Assad regime”.
Delay, Haley argues, would create a “watered-down resolution” that would strengthen Assad. “Strengthening Assad would only lead to murders,” she says.
Haley condemns, in particular, Russia’s conduct with regard to Syria’s agreement to destroy its chemical weapons stockpiles.
“That has not happened,” she says. “It could be that Russia is knowingly allowing chemical weapons.”
She offers that Russia’s oversight could be incompetent, or, she says, “it could be that the Assad regime is playing the Russians for fools”.
“The world is waiting for the Russian government to act responsibly in Syria. The world is waiting for Russia to reconsider its misplaced alliance with Bashar al-Assad. The United States will no longer wait,” she says. “Those days are over.”
Haley concludes by calling for a move toward a political solution, implying that the US missile strikes should be a sign to Assad and his allies that they must “take this process seriously, something they have not done” so far.
Updated
American ambassador: 'US prepared to do more'
The American ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, says the US “took a very measured step last night. We are prepared to do more but we hope that will not be necessary.”
Speaking in her capacity as ambassador and not as the current head of the security council, Haley condemns Syria – and Russia and Iran – for their respective actions in the last six years.
The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has “terrorized” his country, Haley said, “murdered hundreds of thousands and displaced millions”. She says Assad has broken international law and “shocked the conscience” of the world.
On Tuesday Assad launched “yet another chemical attack, murdering men women and children in the most gruesome way,” Haley says.
“Assad did this because he thought he could get away with it. He thought he knew Russia would have his back.”
Haley says that changed with the US strike. “When the international community fails in its duty to act collectively there are times when states are compelled to take their own action.”
The use of chemical weapons against civilians is “one of those times”, she says, and the cause for which “our military destroyed the airfield from which this week’s chemical strikes took place”.
“We were fully justified in doing so. The moral stain of the Assad regime could no longer go unanswered. “His crimes against humanity could no longer be met with empty words.”
“Bashar al-Assad must never use chemical weapons again, ever.”
Updated
The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, has tweeted several photos of the president, including one during a national security briefing. President Trump sits at the head of the table surrounded by most of the members of his inner circle.
Around the table, from left to right, excluding the president himself: his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin, senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, national security adviser, HR McMaster, and chief of staff, Reince Priebus.
Seated against the wall are Spicer, chief strategist, Steve Bannon, senior adviser Stephen Miller, national security adviser Michael Anton, deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, and chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn.
WH photo (ed for security): @potus receives briefing on #syria military strike fr Nat Security team, inc @vp , SECDEF, CJCS via secure VTC pic.twitter.com/aaCnR7xomR
— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) April 7, 2017
The photo’s composition has drawn comparisons with the photo taking in the Obama White House in 2011 during the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.
Then vice-president Joe Biden sits at the far left, next to Barack Obama. Then secretary of state Hillary Clinton also sits at the table, with then secretary of defense Robert Gates to her right.
Spicer has also tweeted another photo from Trump’s resort at Mar-a-Lago, where the president is meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jingping, and Beijing’s large delegation.
.@POTUS and US delegation join President Xi and the Chinese delegation for a working lunch pic.twitter.com/gDylxomkij
— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) April 7, 2017
Updated
Russia warns US of 'serious consequences' to strike
At the UN, Russia’s deputy ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, has angrily told the United States it should halt any military action against the forces of Bashar al-Assad.
“We call on the United States to immediately cease its aggression and to join efforts to make a political solution in Syria, and to work together to combat the terrorist threat,” Safronkov said.
“We strongly condemn the illegitimate actions by the US. The consequences of this for regional and international stability could be extremely serious,” he added.
The ambassador said that he had heard “many insulting words” about Russia’s use of its veto rights on the UN security council, and defended Russia’s conduct. “We use it only in such circumstances in which you, you try in the UN security council, to impose your irresponsible geopolitical projects.”
Safronkov also said that the council must pay attention to airstrikes, by the US-led coalition against Isis in Mosul, Iraq, that had killed dozens of civilians. “The Mosul tragedy must be publicised, people must know about it,” Safronkov said. “Nothing was said about Mosul.”
“We do not want to draw attention away from Syria,” he added.
Updated
Summary of what we know so far
Last night, the US launched a missile strike against Syria for the first time since the civil war began, targeting an airbase from which the US said this week’s chemical weapons attack on civilians was launched by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
- The strikes targeted Shayrat airbase near Homs. The US has said this was the location from which Syrian forces had launched a chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun on Tuesday morning.
- The Pentagon said 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from the warships USS Ross and Porter in the eastern Mediterranean in the early hours of Friday morning, local time.
- A Syrian official told the Associated Press that at least seven people were killed and nine wounded in the US missile attack. Reuters reported that the Syrian state news agency said the strikes killed nine civilians, including four children, in areas near the targeted airbase. The death toll has not been independently verified.
- Some reports said senior officers had evacuated the base before the airstrikes happened and after foreign countries were notified of an imminent attack by the US.
- President Bashar al-Assad’s office said the strike was “foolish and irresponsible” and “revealed its short-sightedness and political and military blindness to reality”. It said the government would redouble its efforts against rebel groups after the strike, adding: “The disgraceful act of targeting a sovereign state’s airport demonstrates once again that different administrations do not change deeper policies.”
- Syrian rebels welcomed the strike and called for additional action. “Hitting one airbase is not enough – there are 26 airbases that target civilians,” a key figure in the Army of Islam faction, Mohamed Alloush, said on Twitter. “The whole world should save the Syrian people from the clutches of the killer Bashar [al-Assad] and his aides.”
- Russia, a Syria ally that has been helping the Assad regime target rebel-held districts, condemned the US action. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the president regarded the strikes as “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law, and under a false pretext”.
- Peskov said Trump’s move would have consequences for relations between the two countries. “With this step Washington has struck a significant blow to Russian-American relations, which were already in a sorry state.”
- A Russian defence ministry statement read on state television said the US attack had been “ineffective” and claimed Syrian authorities were looking for 36 Tomahawk missiles that fell outside the base and missed the target. The statement also confirmed Russia would stop cooperation and communication with US forces in Syria.
- Shortly thereafter, the Russian military said it would help Syria strengthen its air defences after the strike to help “protect the most sensitive Syrian infrastructure facilities”. In a post on Facebook, the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, wrote about “completely ruined relations” between Russia and the US, saying the US strike was “good news for terrorists”.
- The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said the strikes did not indicate a shift in US policy towards Syria, despite it being a significant change from the previous stance taken by the Trump administration. Tillerson said Russia bore responsibility for its handling of the 2013 deal that was supposed to remove Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons.
- The Pentagon confirmed Russia had been told in advance of the strike through military channels, despite earlier claims from Tillerson that there had been no contact.
- Hillary Clinton called for the US to “take out” Syrian government-controlled airfields just hours before Trump launched airstrikes.
- The move was supported by key US allies, including the UK, Australia, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Italy and Japan said they understood the action taken by the US.
- The UK defence secretary, Michael Fallon, said the British government was not asked to provide military support to the US attack but believed it was a “wholly appropriate”. “We’re not committed to military action against Syria. Our parliament considered that before, back in 2013, and turned it down,” he said.
- Iran, Assad’s regional backer, said it “strongly condemned” the strikes, as it condemned “all unilateral military action”. It said the action was taken under the “pretext” of the chemical strike. Bahram Ghasemi, Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman, said the attack “strengthens the near-to-death terrorists and complicates the situation in Syria and the whole region”.
- The UN coordinator for humanitarian affairs, Jens Laerke, says it had no sign that US military strikes against the Syrian airbase had had “any direct consequence” on overall aid operations in Syria. A UN human rights office spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, said on Friday at a UN briefing that use of chemical weapons, if confirmed, would amount to a war crime.
- The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed to parties involved in the Syrian conflict for restraint to avoid adding to the suffering of Syria’s people.
- Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said Assad “bears full responsibility” for the US airstrikes against an airbase in Syria. The European commission said Jean-Claude Juncker “understands efforts to deter future attacks” and that the EU stood ready to play its role in finding a political solution to the crisis.
- The Syrian Observatory on Human Rights said airstrikes may have struck Khan Sheikhun on Friday.
- The UN security council has met to discuss the US strikes. Britain’s UN ambassador, Matthew Rycroft, said Assad has been “put on notice”, describing the strike as a “proportionate response to unspeakable acts”. France’s UN ambassador, François Delattre, said Assad’s goal was “annihilation, quite simply, of all those who resist him, whatever the price might be”.
Updated
The French UN ambassador, François Delattre, has told the UN security council that Assad’s goal is “annihilation, quite simply, of all those who resist him, whatever the price might be”. He described the US strike as legitimate as it had become “essential to deter” Assad.
Updated
The leader of one of Europe’s oldest human rights bodies is facing growing criticism over a surprise meeting last month with Bashar al-Assad.
Pedro Agramunt, a Spanish centre-right politician who is president of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace), caused consternation at the Strasbourg-based organisation when it was reported that he and other lawmakers had paid an unexpected visit to Syria last month.
Agramunt and several European parliamentarians had met Assad accompanied by a Russian delegation led by the Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky. According to the Russian state news agency Tass, 10 European parliamentarians were present on the trip, which took place on 20 March.
Diplomats and MPs from several countries were already unhappy about the visit even before this week’s chemical attack by the Assad regime. Now pressure on the Spanish politician is mounting.
“An increasing number of members of the assembly, political groups and national delegations are expressing their concern and criticism,” the Socialist party has said in a recent statement. “It is urgent that Pace reiterates its condemnation of war crimes and killing of civilians and dissociates from any initiative which can weaken its capacity and credibility of acting as strong advocate for human rights.”
The group said it had written to Agramunt asking for “urgent and public clarification about the role of Pace in this story … but, unfortunately, this clarification has not been made”.
French parliamentarians have also written to Agramunt demanding an explanation by the next session, which begins on 24 April.
The Council of Europe was established in 1949 to safeguard democracy and human rights on the continent. Parliamentarians from 47 countries meet four times a year in the parliamentary assembly in Strasbourg, though Russia has not returned to the assembly following its suspension in 2014 in response to the annexation of Crimea.
Tass had described Agramunt as Pace president, though officials at the Council of Europe have insisted he was not making an official visit. Agramunt’s “initiative does not commit the Council of Europe in any way”, said a spokesman.
The office of the Pace president had not immediately responded to the Guardian’s request for comment when this blog post was published.
Updated
Trump’s airstrike is a convenient U-turn from a president who can’t be trusted, writes Jonathan Freedland.
Britain’s UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft: Assad has been 'put on notice'
Britain’s UN ambassador, Matthew Rycroft, has said Assad has been “put on notice” by the US airstrike, describing it as a “proportionate response to unspeakable acts”.
“Without Russia’s seven vetoes in the security council, defying the views of other members of this council, Assad would have faced sanctions and justice,” Rycroft told the 15-member council.
Updated
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he supported the “strong and clear message” sent by the US airstrike.
The Israeli military said it had been informed in advance of the strike. “In both word and action, President Trump sent a strong and clear message today that the use and spread of chemical weapons will not be tolerated,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said. “Israel fully supports President Trump’s decision and hopes that this message of resolve in the face of the Assad regime’s horrific actions will resonate not only in Damascus, but in Tehran, Pyongyang and elsewhere.”
Hours after those remarks, the US vice-president, Mike Pence, called the Israeli premier and thanked him in Trump’s name for the Israeli support of the US attack in Syria, Netanyahu’s office said. Pence had also “updated Netanyahu on the details of the attack and its outcome”, it said.
“Netanyahu reiterated the need to prevent the distribution and use of chemical weapons,” his office said.
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The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, appeared in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Friday, saying the US attack on Syria was “necessary”, writes Julien Gignac.
“In the face of heinous war crimes, all civilised peoples must speak with one voice,” he said. “That is why Canada fully supports in the United States’ limited, focused action to degrade the Assad regime’s ability to launch such attacks.”
An ongoing push for diplomatic efforts was asserted. “We know that long-term solutions for Syria have to go by way of diplomacy,” he said.
Trudeau said he had spoken with Donald Trump on Friday morning, emphasising “that Canada agrees that Assad’s repeated use of chemical weapons must not continue”.
Trudeau stated that he had been informed of the US offensive about an hour in advance.
“We emphasised that we certainly believe that the Assad regime needs to be held to account against its civilians, particularly the use of chemical weapons against children and innocents, and further degrading their capacity to continue such attacks is in the interest of the entire international community and the path to peace for Syria,” he said.
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This photo was taken immediately after the US airstrike, and shows Trump receiving a briefing on Syria from his national security team while in Mar-a-Lago.
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Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev: US strike 'good news for terrorists'
In a post on Facebook, the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has written about “completely ruined relations” between Russia and the US. He said:
That’s it. The last remaining election fog has lifted. Instead of an overworked statement about a joint fight against the biggest enemy, Isis (Islamic State), the Trump administration proved that it will fiercely fight the legitimate Syrian government, in a tough contradiction with international law and without UN approval, in violation of its own procedures stipulating that the Congress must first be notified of any military operation unrelated to aggression against the US. On the verge of a military clash with Russia.
Nobody is overestimating the value of pre-election promises, but there must be limits of decency. Beyond that is absolute mistrust. Which is really sad for our now completely ruined relations. And which is good news for terrorists.
One more thing. This military action is a clear indication of the US president’s extreme dependency on the opinion of the Washington establishment, the one that the new president strongly criticised in his inauguration speech. Soon after his victory, I noted that everything would depend on how soon Trump’s election promises would be broken by the existing power machine. It took only two and a half months.
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Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, has said the US had insisted that the emergency meeting of the UN security council be held in the open so that “any country that chooses to defend the atrocities of the Syrian regime will have to do in full public view, for all the world to hear”.
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Muhammed AlRuru, 35, from Khan Sheikhun, told Mona Mahmood:
I live almost 200m west of where the chemical attack took place. I saw a yellow cloud when I was releasing my sheep. I ran first to the basement, but after 10 minutes I and other locals headed to find out if there were any victims.
I saw my cousin, Usama, lying on the floor. I threw some water on him and stopped one of the cars to take him to a makeshift medical spot. It seems that Usama went to check on his brother’s family but he inhaled some gas and collapsed.
My children were also affected – they were vomiting and their eyes were red, but they are OK. I kept going to the site with other locals searching for survivors.
The situation is difficult here, there are some moments when we envy those who had died especially when the warplanes show on the skies. The kids are terrified, and we can’t do anything.
After the attack, I took part in burying more than 28 victims. I do not find it easy to go back again to the bereaved site, it is very painful to walk among the relatives of the victims who are busy checking who is dead or who is still alive. It is a human disaster by all means and we do not know when the machine of death in Syria will stop.
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Mustafa Muhammed Ieed al-Azreq, 30, from Khan Sheikhun, told the Guardian’s Mona Mahmood about Tuesday’s attack. He said:
I’m a maths teacher at a high school in Khan Sheikhun. I was sleeping at home when I heard a sound of a warplane and then four bangs. I ran to the roof to see what was going on. I saw that the attack was almost 300m from where I live.
I ran down to check the website that we, locals of Khan Sheikhun, have set up to warn each other of any possible arial attack.
The page started to warn people not to go nearby the site of the attack to avoid inhaling the poisonous gas. The situation was terrible, but still I could not stop myself running inside attacked houses, breaking the doors and taking out the victims with some other volunteers.
When I broke into one of the houses, I saw a guy was lying unconscious on stairs, some others in the centre of the house. We took them out but I myself inhaled some of the poisonous gas, the smoke was above our head and we were full of grief at the horrible scenes.
We started to suck the poison out of the victims by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, to help save their lives.
I did that procedure with three victims till I myself started to feel dizzy and my head was spinning. I evacuated seven kids, by chance one of them was still alive and breathing. His name is Mustafa al-Khalid, 15. I felt the pulse in his hand while all the other seven member of his family had died in the house. I put him in my own car and took him to the nearest medical centre where I myself fainted later.
I have my son, my two brothers and parents living with me, they all went to another village to escape the gas. The warplanes are still hovering on Khan Sheikhun where you can smell only death. It is a death without blood.
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Lebanon’s Hezbollah has said the US airstrikes in Syria are a “foolish” move that will lead to serious regional tensions.
Hezbollah, which supports Assad, said in a statement the strike would not demoralise the Syrian army or negatively affect its allies. It added the US military action was a “service” to Israel and its “ambitions in the region”.
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Donald Trump has jumped into a quagmire with his eyes shut, writes Richard Wolffe.
It may be hard to believe, but Donald Trump is even more simplistic than George W Bush in matters of war. George W Bush enjoyed all the certainty of a very simple man: you were either with us or against us, good or evil, marching for democracy or plotting terrorist attacks.
UN secretary general António Guterres appeals for restraint
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed to parties involved in the Syrian conflict for restraint to avoid adding to the suffering of Syria’s people.
“Mindful of the risk of escalation, I appeal for restraint to avoid any acts that could deepen the suffering of the Syrian people,” he said in a statement.
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US lawmakers from both parties have backed the airstrikes on Syria and urged Trump to spell out a broader strategy for dealing with the conflict.
“I am hopeful these strikes will convince the Assad regime that such actions should never be repeated,” said Senator Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat.
But Warner, who said he had been briefed on the strikes by the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, urged Trump, a Republican, to lay out his plans for the multi-sided Syria conflict. “President Trump has said repeatedly that his objective in Syria is to defeat [Islamic State militants]. Last night’s strike was aimed at a different objective,” he said in a statement. “President Trump needs to articulate a coherent strategy for dealing with this complex conflict, because the consequences of a misstep are grave.”
The armed services committee chairman, Senator John McCain, who has long called for more aggressive action against Assad, told MSNBC: “The signal I think that was sent last night ... was a very, very important one.” But the Arizona Republican also said: “Despite all the enthusiasm we see this morning, if I might quote Churchill, it’s the end of the beginning not the beginning of the end.”
Trump, McCain added, should be “prepared to take other action”, including establishing safe zones within Syria and further arming and training of anti-Assad rebels.
Several lawmakers said Trump should seek the approval of Congress if he decides to take additional military action in Syria. Senator Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said the strikes in Syria could send a message to other US adversaries such as North Korea. “I think the time has come for some of these countries to be worried about us a little bit, not us always worried about what they might do,” Rubio told Fox News.
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Donald Trump and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, are meeting for a second day at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as planned on Friday, AP reports.
Their first-night summit dinner wrapped up shortly before the US announced the missile barrage on an airbase in Syria on Thursday night.
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The chair of the United Nations Association UK has questioned the wisdom of the US hit on Shayrat airbase. Stewart Wood said: “It’s unclear how US airstrikes will make civilians safer.”
In a blog post, Lord Wood of Anfield wrote: “Unilateral action without broad international backing through the UN, without a clear strategy for safeguarding civilians, and through military escalation risks further deepening and exacerbating an already protracted and horrific conflict, leaving civilians at greater, not lesser, risk of atrocities.”
He added that by circumventing the UN “we reduce both legitimacy and effectiveness, as a course of action that does not have the broad support of regional powers and the international community, channelled through UN systems and processes, can have little chance of success in leading to a more stable Syria”.
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GENEVA (AP) _ UN Syria envoy tells AP his office is in `crisis mode' after US strike, calls emergency meeting in Geneva.
— Ken Thomas (@KThomasDC) April 7, 2017
The situation in Syria “amounts to an international armed conflict” following the US airstrike on a Syrian airbase, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said.
Iolanda Jaquemet, its spokeswoman, said: “Any military operation by a state on the territory of another without the consent of the other amounts to an international armed conflict. So according to available information [about] the US attack on Syrian military infrastructure, the situation amounts to an international armed conflict.”
ICRC officials were raising the attack with US authorities as part of ongoing confidential dialogue with parties to the conflict, she added.
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UN security council to discuss the airstrikes
The UN security council will meet at 4.30pm UK time to discuss US strikes in Syria, according to Reuters.
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Rebel Free Syrian Army welcomes airstrikes but fears retaliation – reports
The Free Syrian Army has released a statement welcoming the US airstrikes in Syria but has warned the US “responsibility is still big and does not end with this operation”, Reuters reports.
The rebel group said it was afraid of acts of revenge against civilians by Assad and his allies and said military operations targeting airbases and banned weapons should continue.
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There has been more support for Trump’s airstrikes in Syria, this time from Canada and Jordan.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said in a statement: “Canada fully supports the United States’ limited and focused action to degrade the Assad regime’s ability to launch chemical weapons attacks against innocent civilians, including many children.
“President Assad’s use of chemical weapons and the crimes the Syrian regime has committed against its own people cannot be ignored.”
The Jordanian state news agency, Petra, reported that the Jordanian administration said the US missile strike was “necessary and appropriate”.
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The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, has backed the US airstrikes in Syria in a piece for the Guardian.
It starts:
I am in no doubt that what will end the war in Syria is what ultimately ends every conflict: words and diplomacy, not weapons. But when diplomacy fails and civilians suffer, as they have been doing for many years in Syria, and when they are the victim of weapons that have been outlawed by the international community for their horrific and indiscriminate consequences, then we cannot shy away from proportionate military intervention.
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Here’s a roundup of global reaction to the US airstrikes in Syria:
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Assad's office calls US strike 'reckless and irresponsible'
The office of the Syrian president has called the US strike against one of its airbases in central Homs “reckless” and “irresponsible”, AP reports.
The statement on Friday said the strikes were “shortsighted” and reflect a continuation of policy regardless of which administration that is based on targeting and “subjugating people”. It added that the dawn attack was not based on facts.
UPDATE: Syrian presidency breaks silence, says U.S. airstrikes "foolish, irresponsible." pic.twitter.com/gYidve7CAp
— News_Executive (@News_Executive) April 7, 2017
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Putin holds security council meeting
Vladimir Putin has held a meeting of the security council to discuss the Russian response. “The participants expressed deep concern at the inevitable negative consequences of these aggressive actions for the joint efforts to fight terrorism,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He said the security council also expressed regret at the harm the strike would do to US-Russian relations, and they discussed ways to continue the Russian air force operation in Syria to give support to Assad’s army.
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Russian military to strengthen Syrian air defences – AP
The Russian military has said it would help Syria strengthen its air defences after the US strike on a Syrian airbase, AP reports.
A Russian defence ministry spokesman, Maj Gen Igor Konashenkov, said that a “complex of measures” to strengthen Syrian air defences would be done shortly to help “protect the most sensitive Syrian infrastructure facilities”.
Konashenkov said “the combat efficiency of the US strike was very low”, adding that only 23 of the 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles had reached Shayrat airbase in the province of Homs.
He said the attack had destroyed six MiG-23 fighter jets of the Syrian air force which were under repairs but didn’t damage other Syrian warplanes at the base.
Konashenkov added that the base’s runway also had been left undamaged.
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The UN coordinator for humanitarian affairs says it has no sign that US military strikes against a Syrian airbase have had “any direct consequence” on overall aid operations in Syria, AP reports.
Jens Laerke, of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said such violence “is not a new feature” of Syria’s war, and cited continued UN-led efforts to reach people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas of the country.
The US launched cruise missile strikes against Shayrat airbase in Homs province following a chemical attack in a northern village that US officials and others have blamed on Assad forces.
Ravina Shamdasani, a UN human rights office spokeswoman, said on Friday at a UN briefing that use of chemical weapons, if confirmed, would amount to a war crime.
Updated
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, “bears full responsibility” for the US airstrikes against an airbase in Syria, Reuters reports.
Stoltenberg added: “Any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable, cannot go unanswered, and those responsible must be held accountable.” Stoltenberg was told by the US defense secretary that the airstrikes would go ahead.
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US missile attack risks escalation in Syria - Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party, has broken his silence over the US missile strikes in Syria. He said:
The US missile attack on a Syrian government airbase risks escalating the war in Syria still further.
Tuesday’s horrific chemical attack was a war crime which requires urgent independent UN investigation and those responsible must be held to account.
But unilateral military action without legal authorisation or independent verification risks intensifying a multi-sided conflict that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people.
What is needed instead is to urgently reconvene the Geneva peace talks and unrelenting international pressure for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
The terrible suffering of the Syrian people must be brought to an end as soon as possible and every intervention must be judged on what contribution it makes to that outcome.
The British government should urge restraint on the Trump administration and throw its weight behind peace negotiations and a comprehensive political settlement.
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The European commission head, Jean Claude Juncker, responded that “he understands efforts to deter future attacks” and that the EU stood ready to play its role in finding a political solution to the crisis.
A statement for the European commission president said:
A horrific chemical weapons attack on civilians struck Khan Sheikhun on 4 April. Last night, in response, the US launched airstrikes on Shayrat airfield.
The US has informed the EU that these strikes were limited and seek to deter further chemical weapons atrocities.
President Juncker has been unequivocal in his condemnation of the use of chemical weapons.
The repeated use of such weapons must be answered. He understands efforts to deter further attacks. There is a clear distinction between airstrikes on military targets and the use of chemical weapons against civilians.
Efforts to stem the spiral of violence in Syria and work towards a lasting peace should be redoubled. Only a political transition can lead to such an outcome. President Juncker and the European commission as a whole stand ready to play their part in full.
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The UK’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, appears to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the US president’s decision to launch the airstrike.
Emerging from talks with the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, on Friday morning, Johnson avoided making any comment, with one aide telling reporters he was “departing immediately” for Britain.
Johnson had preferred to stick to the issues of Brexit, Cyprus and Turkey during his discussions with the Greek leader, officials in Athens told the Guardian.
A spokeswoman for Number 10 and the UK defence secretary, Michael Fallon, have said they supported the strikes, adding they were “appropriate”.
Updated
A warplane on Friday bombed the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhun, where a chemical attack killed scores of people earlier this week and prompted US missile strikes, a witness in the rebel-held area and a war monitoring group has said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organisation that monitors the war, said a Syrian government or Russian warplane hit Khan Sheikhun, in rebel-held Idlib province, before noon local time.
The Syrian army and the Russian defence ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.
The witness, an activist working with an air raid warning service in opposition areas, said the jet struck at about 11am (0800 GMT) at the northern edge of the town, causing damage but no known casualties.
The US fired dozens of cruise missiles on Friday at an airfield from which it said the Khan Sheikhun chemical attack that killed at least 70 people had been launched on Tuesday.
Washington blamed the gas attack on Syrian government forces. The Syrian government strongly denies responsibility and said it had not used chemical weapons.
The observatory and the witness said earlier this week that the aircraft which they accused of carrying out the suspected gas attack had flown out of Shayrat airbase.
The Syrian army said the missile attack on its airbase killed six people and caused extensive damage, describing it as a “blatant aggression”.
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Syrian state news agency claims US attack killed nine civilians, including four children
Reuters is reporting that the Syrian state news agency has said that US airstrikes killed nine civilians, including four children, in areas near the targeted airbase.
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Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, will hold a meeting of his security council later on Friday to discuss the US missile strikes on Syria, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters.
Russia has suspended its Syria air safety agreement with the United States following the missile strikes, Reuters reports.
Peskov said Russia would keep technical and military channels of communication open with Washington but would not exchange any information through them.
“In light of the missile strikes, risks [of collisions between Russian and US aircraft] are significantly higher,” the spokesman told reporters.
The strikes were carried out in the interests of Islamic State and other radical groups operating in Syria, Peskov added.
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A Russian defence ministry statement read on state television said the US attack had been “ineffective” and claimed Syrian authorities were looking for 36 Tomahawk missiles which fell outside the base and missed the target.
The statement also confirmed that Russia would stop cooperation and communication with US forces in Syria.
The Russian state news reporter Evgeny Poddubny is at the base and posted a video of the damage on his Instagram account. He also wrote that his “preliminary information” at the base was that nine jets were destroyed in the strike.
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Airstrikes reported in chemical attack town – Reuters
Airstrikes may have struck the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhun on Friday, where a chemical attack killed scores of people this week, according to a witness in the rebel-held area and a war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights.
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Iran, Assad’s staunch regional backer, was quick to condemn the US strike on Syria’s Shayrat airbase, saying it violated international law and risked complicating the conflict further.
Tehran authorities also questioned claims that Assad was behind the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhun.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran, as the biggest victim of chemical weapons in the contemporary history, condemns all uses of chemical weapons regardless of their users or victims, and at the same time considers any unilateral measure with this excuse as dangerous, destructive, and violating of the imperative principles of the international law,” said Bahram Ghasemi, Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.
“We believe that the American missile attack on Shayrat airbase in Syria launched from US warships, with the excuse of the mysterious chemical attack on Khan Sheikhun, Idlib, whose time, executers and beneficiaries are shrouded in mystery, strengthens the near-to-death terrorists and complicates the situation in Syria and the whole region,” he added.
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Russia 24 TV has shown images of damage at Shayrat airbase, which was targeted by the US airstrike. Here are some screengrabs shown on BBC News:
Updated
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who is in Tashkent, said it appears there were no Russian servicemen killed in the missile strikes.
He also compared the action to the 2003 invasion of Iraq but said “at least that time they tried to bring some evidence forward”.
Other politicians in Russia are lining up to condemn the US airstrike, with many claiming the news of the chemical attack was a “fake” in order to provide a pretext for military action.
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Hillary Clinton had called for the US to take out Syrian government-controlled airfields just hours before Donald Trump launched airstrikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, PA reports.
Speaking in her first public interview since losing the US election in November, Clinton said Assad’s aerial power had been the key component behind widespread civilian deaths since the start of the civil war in 2011.
President Trump authorised the launchof cruise missiles in the early hours of Friday morning on a Syrian airbase thought to be behind this week’s chemical weapons attack.
Speaking to the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Clinton said she believed the US had been wrong not to have previously launched such an offensive.
She said: “Assad had an air force, and that air force is the cause of most of the civilian deaths, as we have seen over the years and as we saw again in the last few days.
“And I really believe that we should have and still should take out his airfields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop Sarin gas on them.”
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Angelino Alfano, the Italian foreign minister, said in a statement that Italy understood the reasons behind US military action and called the strikes a “proportionate” deterrent to the further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.
Alfano called for a “necessary and urgent” meeting of the UN security council – where Italy, a non-permanent member, currently has a vote – and the adoption of a consensus resolution to prevent further atrocities.
He also pointed to Rex Tillerson’s upcoming visit to Moscow, suggesting that the US secretary of state could encourage Russia to use its influence in Syria and with Assad to agree “a real ceasefire, full humanitarian access and a gradual building of trust between the Syrian parties”.
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Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said he supported Donald Trump’s “resolve” against the use and proliferation of chemical weapons.
“We understand that the action taken by the United States was designed to prevent the situation [in Syria] from worsening,” Kyodo News quoted Abe as saying after a meeting of Japan’s national security council.
Abe described Tuesday’s chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians as “extremely inhumane”, adding that he appreciated Trump’s attempts to address threats to global security, including North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.
Syria aside, Abe said “the threat from weapons of mass destruction is also growing more serious in east Asia”.
He added: “Japan will coordinate with the United States and the rest of the international community and play its proper role in global peace and stability.”
Updated
China’s Global Times, a nationalist Communist party-controlled tabloid that sometimes reflects official views, has published an online editorial criticising Trump’s strikes against Syria.
The newspaper said the attack was likely to spark conflict between the US and Russia and “took place despite no definitive results from the investigation by an international organisation, and was carried out in the absence of a UN security council resolution”.
“Trump’s decision to attack the Assad government is a show of force from the US president,” it added. “He wants to prove that he dares to do what Obama dared not. He wants to prove to the world that he is no ‘businessman president’ and that he will use US military force without hesitation when he considers it necessary.”
“This is Trump’s first major move in international affairs, and it leaves an impression that the decision was made in haste,” the newspaper added. “The Syrian civil war is entering a new phase. More refugees will flee the region and Europe may have to pay the price.”
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At least seven dead in airstrike - Syrian official
A Syrian official has told the Associated Press that at least seven were killed and nine were wounded in US missile attack on airbase.
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Syria rebels welcome US strike
Syrian rebels on Friday welcomed a US strike on a government airbase and called for additional action, with one powerful faction saying a single strike was not enough, AFP reports.
“Hitting one airbase is not enough, there are 26 airbases that target civilians,” a key figure in the Army of Islam faction, Mohamed Alloush, said on Twitter. “The whole world should save the Syrian people from the clutches of the killer Bashar [al-Assad] and his aides.”
Other rebel groups welcomed the US strike and called for continued military action against the regime.
“The American strike against the killing tools used by Bashar al-Assad is the first step on the correct path to combating terrorism and we hope it will continue,” said Issam Raes, spokesman for the Southern Front rebel faction. “In my opinion, the message is political, and the message has arrived to Russia and been understood.”
Colonel Ahmed Osman, of the Turkey-backed Sultan Murad rebel group, said: “We welcome any action that will put an end to the regime that is committing the worst crimes in history.”
Mohamed Bayrakdar, another leader of the Army of Islam, which operates mainly around the capital Damascus, described the strike as “a bold and correct step”.
“We welcome any response to the crimes of the regime,” he told AFP.
Updated
What we know so far
- The US has launched a missile strike against Syria, targeting al-Shayrat airbase close to Homs, from where it said this week’s sarin nerve gas attack on Khan Sheikhun was launched.
- Fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from warships USS Ross and USS Porter in the eastern Mediterranean in the early hours of Friday morning.
- Reports from Homs province said the airbase was destroyed, and six people killed. Some reports said senior officers had evacuated the base before the airstrikes happened.
- Donald Trump (read his full comments here) said the strike was a direct response to the chemical weapons attack that killed more than 70 people:
It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.
- There was an angry response in Russia, where the Kremlin warned that the strikes were a “significant blow to Russian-American relations, which were already in a sorry state”. Moscow called for a meeting of the UN security council to discuss the strikes.
- Tillerson said Russia bore responsibility for its handling of the 2013 deal that was supposed to remove Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile:
Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end of that agreement.
- Tillerson said there had been “no discussions” with Moscow before the strike. But the Pentagon confirmed that Russia – a key Assad ally – had been informed in advance of the strike through military channels:
Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line.
- Sources told the Guardian that US intelligence officials believe Russian personnel were at al-Shayrat airbase when sarin was loaded on to a Syrian jet. They have not established whether the Russians knew it was happening.
- The UK, Australia, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand and Japan offered strong backing for the US strikes, while Iran condemned the move. France and Germany confirmed they had been informed in advance of the attack, though China warned it opposed the use of force.
Read our latest news story here:
I’m now handing over the live blog to my colleague Jamie Grierson, who will continue to bring you the latest developments.
Updated
France: 'Assad bears full responsibility'
France was among the countries informed by the US ahead of the strikes, the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said.
“I was told by Rex Tillerson during the night,” Ayrault said, calling the missile strike “a warning [to] a criminal regime”.
The office of the French president, François Hollande, issued a statement confirming he had spoken with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel:
The president and the German chancellor held talks on the telephone this morning on the situation in Syria.
Following the chemical massacre on April 4 in Khan Sheikhun in the north-west of Syria, a military installation of the Syrian regime used for chemical bombing was destroyed last night by US strikes. We have been informed.
Assad bears full responsibility for this development. Its continued use of chemical weapons and mass crimes can not go unpunished …
France and Germany therefore continue their efforts with partners in the United Nations framework to sanction the most appropriate criminal acts related to the use of chemical weapons banned by all treaties.
We call on the international community to come together for a political transition in Syria, in accordance with resolution 2254 of the security council and the Geneva communiqué.
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Sources: Russian personnel at airbase before gas attack
Sources have told the Guardian that US intelligence officials believe Russian personnel were at al-Shayrat airbase when sarin was loaded on to a Syrian jet. They have not established whether the Russians knew it was happening.
The base covers an area of more than 8 sq km and has two runways and dozens of buildings, silos and storage facilities.
Syrian opposition figures claim to have identified the pilot allegedly responsible for bombing Khan Sheikhun at about 6.30am on 4 April. Five hours later, close to 11.30am, a hospital treating victims from the attack was hit by a conventional bomb, dropped from a jet.
The sources say that on both occasions, a Russian Sukhoi was monitored by ground radar and aerial reconnaissance flying over the town. Flashes were picked up on the ground, indicating that ordnance had been dropped.
The air space over northern Syria is monitored heavily by Turkey, the US and Russia, and all three have precise knowledge of whose jets are in the air and where they fly.
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New Zealand has joined the list of nations backing the airstrikes, with prime minister Bill English saying the US action was supported by NZ.
Foreign minister Murray McCully said:
It is becoming clear that Syrian government forces were responsible for the outrageous attacks where chemical weapons were used.
These events are horrific. It is critical that the international community emphatically demand an end to this violence, and that the Syrian government be held to account.
In the absence of an adequate response from the United Nations security council, we can understand why the United States has taken targeted unilateral action to try and prevent further such attacks by the Syrian regime.
Russia calls for UN security council meeting on strikes
Russia (which, along with China, has vetoed previous UN resolutions against Assad) has called for a meeting of the UN security council to discuss the US strikes:
#BREAKING Russia calls for UN Security Council meeting on US Syria strikes
— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 7, 2017
Russia also says it is suspending its agreement to communicate with the US over the use of Syrian airspace – possibly a reference to the so-called “deconfliction line”, via which the US military gave Russia warning on Thursday of the missile strikes (more on that here):
#BREAKING Russia 'halts' agreement with US to avoid clashes in Syria airspace: ministry
— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 7, 2017
China, which has repeatedly blocked UN resolutions against Assad, has now issued its official response to the US strikes on Syria.
Speaking at a press conference in Beijing, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, stopped short of explicitly condemning the US airstrikes but said China had always been opposed to the “use of force”.
Hua said China also opposed “the use of chemical weapons by any country, organisation or individual, in any circumstance and for any purpose”.
There was now an urgent need to prevent a “further deterioration” of the situation in Syria, Hua added.
Updated
With the UK, Australia, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Japan offering strong backing for the US strikes, Indonesia has given a more cautious response.
Foreign ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir told Reuters via text message that Indonesia strongly condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria but added:
At the same time, Indonesia is concerned with unilateral actions by any parties, including the use of Tomahawk missiles, in responding to the chemical weapon attack tragedy in Syria.
Updated
Fallon: no UK military intervention in Syria
Fallon ruled out UK military intervention in Syria:
We’ve all got to work much harder. We’re not committed to military action against Syria. Our parliament considered that before, back in 2013, and turned it down.
But we are involved in trying to get a political settlement in Syria and we will all be working harder to do that now.
He called on Russia to use its influence to bring violence in Syria to an end.
Updated
The UK defence secretary Michael Fallon has told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
Our reaction is we fully support what the Americans have done. It’s limited; it’s wholly appropriate.
Fallon said the UK was not asked by the Americans to “get involved” in any action against the Assad regime.
James Mattis, Fallon’s US counterpart, made it clear it was a US operation, he said.
Fallon said the US “has not declared war” on Syria:
The Americans have made it clear the attack last night was limited.
But he said the “message” the UK government took from the action was that if Assad used chemical weapons again, the Americans would respond again.
Updated
Six dead in strike: Syrian army
Reuters reports a statement from the Syrian army, which says the missile strikes killed six people and caused “big material losses”.
The army accuses the US of “blatant aggression” against the airbase, and says its response will be to continue to “crush terrorism” and restore “peace and security to all Syria”.
Japan has become the latest country to offer backing for the US strikes against the Syrian airbase, joining the UK, Australia, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said the nerve gas attack earlier this week justified the retaliation:
Many innocent people became victims from the chemical attacks. The international community was shocked by the tragedy that left many young children among the victims.
Japan supports the US government’s determination to prevent the spread and use of chemical weapons.
Updated
Communication between the US and Russia ahead of the strikes took place via the so-called “deconfliction line”, which is controlled by the US military and operates out of the al-Udeid airbase in Qatar.
It is used typically to protect pilots from both countries as they fly sorties over Syria, Associated Press reports, to ensure they do not attack each other, and to avoid the possibility of midair collisions.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the Russians were informed of the imminent strikes in “multiple conversations” through the deconfliction line on Thursday.
Updated
As the missiles were launched from two US warships in the Mediterranean, Donald Trump was in Florida, where he has been hosting the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
After news broke of the strike, Trump broke off from the meeting (and a dinner of steak and carrots) to address reporters on the military action.
Initial plans for a live televised address to the nation reportedly had to be scrapped due to technical difficulties of broadcasting from the resort.
Here are Trump’s remarks in full:
My fellow Americans,
On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians using a deadly nerve agent.
Assad choked out the lives of innocent men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in 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 United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.
There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention, and ignored the urging of the UN security council.
Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically.
As a result the refugee crisis continues to deepen and the region continues to destabilise, threatening the United States and its allies.
Tonight I call on all civilised 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.
We ask for God’s wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world.
We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed.
And we hope that as long as America stands for justice that peace and harmony will in the end prevail.
Goodnight and god bless America and the entire world. Thank you.
Updated
While Moscow has labelled the strikes “an aggression” and warned that they were “a significant blow to Russian-American relations, which were already in a sorry state”, the US earlier caused confusion with conflicting messages over whether Russia had been informed in advance about the attack on the airbase.
Secretary of state Rex Tillerson told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that it had not:
There were no discussions or prior contacts, nor had there been any since the attack with Moscow.
But the Pentagon said Russia had been alerted in advance, through military channels.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the Russians were informed in “multiple conversations” on Thursday, through the “deconfliction channel” – a communications channel to the Russian base at Latakia used to avoid collisions or exchanges of fire between US and allied planes and Russian planes:
There are Russians at the base and we took extraordinary precautions to not target the area where the Russians are.
This will raise many questions, says Guardian US national security editor Spencer Ackerman:
The Russians are sure to have routed that warning to Assad, raising immediate questions about what the strike will have accomplished.
The Kremlin has made its first comment, with Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov making an angry statement. Peskov said Putin sees the strikes on Syria as “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law, and under a false pretext”.
Peskov claimed Syria has no chemical weapons, and that the destruction of them has been monitored by international observers. He said Trump’s move would have consequences for the relationship between the two countries.
“With this step Washington has struck a significant blow to Russian-American relations, which were already in a sorry state,” said Peskov.
No word yet on any concrete response, though.
Updated
Catch up with our coverage of the US strikes against Syria here:
What we know so far
- The US has launched a missile strike against Syria, targeting al-Shayrat airbase close to Homs, from where it said this week’s sarin nerve gas attack on Khan Sheikhun was launched.
- The Pentagon said 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from warships USS Ross and Porter in the eastern Mediterranean in the early hours of Friday morning, Syria time.
- Unconfirmed reports from Homs province said the airbase was destroyed, and some personnel killed. Some reports said senior officers had evacuated the base before the airstrikes happened.
- Donald Trump said the strike was a direct response to the chemical weapons attack that killed more than 70 people:
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 United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.
There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention, and ignored the urging of the UN security council.
Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically.
- US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said the strike did not indicate a shift in US policy towards Syria, despite its significant shift from the previous stance taken by the Trump administration.
- There was an angry response in Russia, where the Kremlin warned that the strikes would cause “significant damage to US-Russia ties”.
- Tillerson said Russia bore responsibility for its handling of the 2013 deal that was supposed to remove Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile:
They would act as the guarantor that these weapons would no longer be present in Syria. Clearly Russia has failed in its responsibility to deliver on that commitment from 2013.
Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end of that agreement.
- Tillerson said there had been “no discussions” with Moscow before or since the strike.
- But the Pentagon confirmed that Russia – a key Assad ally – had been informed in advance of the strike through military channels:
Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line.
- The Pentagon also said it believes the strike has “severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure”.
- Support for the US action came from the UK, Australia, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, while Iran condemned the strikes.
Read our latest news story here:
Updated
The Turkish deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmuş, has backed the US strikes.
Speaking on Turkish Fox TV, Kurtulmuş said he hoped the operation would contribute to achieving peace in Syria, and said the international community needed to maintain pressure on Assad.
Kremlin response: 'significant damage to US-Russia ties'
In its first public response to the airstrikes, the Kremlin has issued a strong statement condemning the US move as “aggression against a sovereign nation”.
Moscow said the strikes had been carried out on an “invented pretext” and claimed the Syrian army did not have chemical weapons.
The strikes, it said, would do “significant damage to US-Russia ties” and created a “serious obstacle” to creating an international coalition to defeat Isis.
Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said, views the strikes as an attempt to deflect world attention from civilian deaths in Iraq – where at least 150 people died in a series of coalition airstrikes in Mosul last month.
Iran has condemned the US missile strike on Syria, Associated Press reports:
Foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said the “unilateral action is dangerous, destructive and violates the principles of international law”, in a report carried Friday by the semi-official ISNA news agency.
Iran is one of the biggest supporters of Assad and its hardline paramilitary Revolutionary Guard is deeply involved in the war.
Ghasemi described Iran as “the biggest victim of chemical weapons in recent history”, referencing Iraqi use of the weapons during its 1980s war. He said Iran condemned the missile launch “regardless of the perpetrators and the victims” of Tuesday’s chemical weapons attack in Syria.
He also warned it would “strengthen terrorists” and further add to “the complexity of the situation in Syria and the region”.
In addition, Shaun Walker reports, there’s a big round of diplomacy ahead in Russia next week: US secretary of state Rex Tillerson is due in Moscow on Wednesday and is expected to meet with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and president Vladimir Putin.
Boris Johnson is in Moscow on Monday and will meet Lavrov.
The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent reports:
The Russian foreign ministry has said it will make a statement soon on the US action. There has been a lot of negative comment so far, comparing Trump’s move to previous US incursions in the Middle East, but little concrete information about the potential consequences, as people wait for a signal from the Kremlin on how Russia is going to play this.
The Pentagon has said there were “multiple conversations” with Russia before the strike, and that “extraordinary precautions” were taken not to target Russians at the base, but we are also yet to hear anything from either the Kremlin or military HQ on how these discussions looked from Moscow.
A report on the state news said the US had launched the attack after “baseless” claims that Assad had used chemical weapons. Senator Viktor Ozerov said Trump was “following in the footsteps of Bush Jr who looked for chemical weapons in Iraq, and we all know how that worked out”.
Alexei Pushkov, a Russian senator and former top foreign policy official, wrote on Twitter shortly before the US missiles were launched:
In the 21st century, every US president has had a war in the Middle East, if not two. If Trump goes into Syria, he’ll sit alongside Bush and Obama.
Vladimir Safronkov, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, said:
The authors of these plans should stop and think what military operations in Iraq, Libya, and other countries led to. All the consequences will be on the conscience of those who came up with these plans.
UK: strike was 'appropriate response'
Britain, too, has issued a show of support for the US action against Syria.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said:
The UK government fully supports the US action, which we believe was an appropriate response to the barbaric chemical weapons attack launched by the Syrian regime, and is intended to deter further attacks.
Australia 'strongly supports' US strike
Australia’s prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he “strongly supports” the US military strike on Syria’s al-Shayrat airfield, calling it a calibrated, proportionate and targeted response to the Syrian regime’s “shocking war crime”.
He said Australia was in close discussions with its allies about the next steps, but said the airstrike had sent an important signal that the world would not tolerate the use of chemical weapons.
In a specially-convened press conference in Sydney on Friday, Turnbull said:
It sends a strong message to the Assad regime.
The retribution has been proportionate and it has been swift. We support the United States in that swift action.
Turnbull said it was important to note that the international community was not at war with the Assad regime, and the US had made it clear it was not seeking to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.
However, he said events of this week raised “very real questions” over whether Assad could remain as leader of Syria:
This chemical attack was a horrific crime, shocking, even in the context of that brutal war.
Turnbull said the US had not asked for more military support, but he left open the possibility of providing it in the future:
There is no question that this shocking conflict in Syria is crying out itself for a resolution and we certainly will continue to work with our allies and our partners to see a resolution to this shocking war.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organisation that monitors the war, says al-Shayrat airbase has been almost completely destroyed.
There are reports that some troops have been killed, but this is as yet unconfirmed.
A mainstay of US warfare for more than 20 years, the Tomahawk cruise missile had been considered the most likely weapon for any strike by the Trump administration against the Syrian military. And so it proved.
The US launched its surprise attack on an inland airbase near Homs early on Thursday morning, with 59 of the missiles deployed from two naval destroyers. USS Ross and USS Porter were in the eastern Mediterranean sea off Syria’s western coast.
More than 6.25m long (20ft) and weighing 1,590kg (3,500lb), the Tomahawk land-attack missile is billed by the US navy as “an all-weather, long range, subsonic cruise missile” able to be launched from either ships or submarines.
They commonly carry warheads of up to 454kg (1,000lb), and are designed to fly at low altitudes towards even heavily defended land targets with extreme accuracy.
Their chief advantage in warfare is that they are unmanned, guided by GPS to targets more than 1,600km (1,000 miles) away at high subsonic speeds of 885km/h (550mph).
Russia is waking up to news of the strike – though we know military channels were used to alert Moscow before the missiles were launched – and reaction so far has been hostile.
State news agency RIA quoted Viktor Ozerov, head of the defence and security committee at the Russian upper house of parliament, saying the US strikes could undermine the fight against terrorism.
Ozerov said Russia would call for an urgent meeting of the UN security council:
This [the attack] could be viewed as an act of aggression of the US against a UN nation.
The Guardian’s Middle East correspondent reports from Beirut:
The al-Shayrat air base has been central to the Syrian war and to persistent claims of chemical weapons use. It is one of Bashar al-Assad’s main military institutions and has housed allies including Russian troops, Hezbollah and Iraqi militias throughout the war.
Sources in Lebanon who are allied to the regime said senior officers evacuated the base before the airstrikes happened and some commanders were attempting to move their families to the Lebanese capital.
The US strike had been increasingly anticipated from late on Thursday until early Friday morning, when 59 precision guided missiles were launched from two US destroyers in the Mediterranean.
Russia has retained a presence at al-Shayrat, although its most significant force is located at a purpose-built base close to Latakia.
There was no immediate response from Hezbollah, whose forces have been central to turning the tide of the war in Assad’s favour over the past two years, most recently in Hama, where they have helped rebuff an assault near Syria’s fourth city led by jihadists and opposition groups.
Russia has established a comprehensive ground-radar bubble over much of northern Syria, which would have been capable of detecting incoming threats, such as the pre-dawn barrage of missiles.
Before the war, al-Shayrat was one of Assad’s strategic bases. Located near where large stores of sarin were kept in bunkers, it has maintained that role even as most of the stockpiles were surrendered in late 2013. Since then, there have been several claims of sarin use and extensive claims that chlorine has been strapped to war planes and helicopters and dropped on opposition fighters and communities.
Updated
Homs governor: deaths reported at airbase
Associated Press cites Talal Barazi, governor of Homs province, where al-Shayrat airbase is located, saying there have been deaths as a result of the strikes.
At the moment, there are no further details.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the Russians were informed in “multiple conversations” on Thursday, through the “deconfliction channel” – a communications channel to the Russian base at Latakia used to avoid collisions or exchanges of fire between US and allied planes and Russian planes.
“There are Russians at the base and we took extraordinary precautions to not target the area where the Russians are,” he said.
The US defense department has released images of its two guided-missile destroyers, USS Porter and USS Ross, stationed in the Mediterranean, unleashing the missile strike on Syria.
Updated
AP reports that the Syrian Coalition, an opposition group, has welcomed the US attack, saying it puts an end to an age of “impunity” and should be just the beginning.
Major Jamil al-Saleh, a US-backed rebel commander whose Hama district was struck by a suspected chemical weapons attack, said he hoped the US attack on a government air base would be a “turning point” in the six-year war.
Talal Barazi, governor of Syria’s Homs province, where al-Shayrat airbase is located, has told state TV that such strikes serve the purpose of terrorists, Reuters reports:
Syrian leadership and Syrian policy will not change. This targeting was not the first and I don’t believe it will be the last …
The armed terrorist groups and Daesh [Isis] failed to target the Syrian Arab Army and Russian military positions.
The US strikes “targeted military positions in Syria and in Homs specifically” in order to “serve the goals of terrorism in Syria and the goals of Israel in the long run”, Barazi said. (The Syrian government describes all armed groups opposed to it as terrorists.)
Barazi said there are not thought to be “big human casualties” at the airbase, though there is material damage as a result of the strikes. He said firefighting and rescue operations had been continuing for more than two hours.
And he insisted that the airbase – which the US said was the site from which the sarin nerve gas attack on Khan Sheikhun was launched – was used to support Syrian regime operations against Isis.
Tillerson: 'no change' in US policy on Syria
Secretary of state Rex Tillerson has insisted that the missile strikes – despite the sharp shift they represent from the previous stance taken by the Trump administration – are not in fact a change in US policy towards Syria:
This clearly indicates the president is willing to take decisive action when called for.
I would not in any way attempt to extrapolate that to a change in our policy or posture relative to our military activities in Syria today. There has been no change in that status.
I think it does demonstrate that President Trump is willing to act when governments and actors cross the line and cross the line on violating commitments they’ve made and cross the line in the most heinous of ways.
What we know so far
- The US has launched a missile strike against Syria, targeting al-Shayrat airbase close to Homs, from where it said this week’s sarin nerve gas attack on Khan Sheikhun was launched.
- The Pentagon said 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from warships USS Ross and Porter in the eastern Mediterranean on Thursday at 8.45ET (Friday 3.45am Syria).
- Donald Trump said the strike was a direct response to the chemical weapons attack that killed more than 70 people:
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 United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.
There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention, and ignored the urging of the UN security council.
Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically.
- US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said Russia bore responsibility for its handling of the 2013 deal that was supposed to remove Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile:
They would act as the guarantor that these weapons would no longer be present in Syria. Clearly Russia has failed in its responsibility to deliver on that commitment from 2013.
Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end of that agreement.
- Tillerson said there had been “no discussions” with Moscow before or since the strike.
- But the Pentagon confirmed that Russia – a key Assad ally – had been informed in advance of the strike through military channels:
Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line.
- The Pentagon also said it believes the strike has “severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure”.
Read our latest news story here:
Updated
Tillerson contradicts Pentagon over Russia contact
Contradicting information from the Pentagon – which said “Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line” – secretary of state Rex Tillerson told reporters that Russia had not been alerted:
There were no discussions or prior contacts, nor had there been any since the attack with Moscow.
The contradiction could be explained if Tillerson is referring to political channels, and the Pentagon military ones.
Updated
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also lent his backing to the strike:
Very rare 6am (Jerusalem time) statement from Netanyahu just now: "Israel fully supports President Trump's decision"
— Anshel Pfeffer (@AnshelPfeffer) April 7, 2017
Though Trump had neither congressional nor international authorisation for the strike, prominent US politicians immediately lent him political cover.
House speaker Paul Ryan called the strike “appropriate and just”:
Earlier this week the Assad regime murdered dozens of innocent men, women, and children in a barbaric chemical weapons attack. Tonight the United States responded. This action was appropriate and just.
These tactical strikes make clear that the Assad regime can no longer count on American inaction as it carries out atrocities against the Syrian people.
Resolving the years-long crisis in Syria is a complex task, but Bashar al-Assad must be held accountable and his enablers must be persuaded to change course.
I look forward to the administration further engaging Congress in this effort.
The missile strikes drew mixed reaction on Capitol Hill. Some welcomed what they saw as long overdue action against the human rights abuses of the Assad regime, while others were troubled by the lack of congressional authorisation.
In a joint statement, senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham welcomed Trump’s actions as sending “an important message the United States will no longer stand idly by as Assad, aided and abetted by Putin’s Russia, slaughters innocent Syrians with chemical weapons and barrel bombs”.
The two prominent hawks saw Thursday’s action as a “credible first step” and urged a “new comprehensive strategy” in the region starting with taking Assad’s air force “out of the fight”.
In contrast, Senator Rand Paul, who has long been skeptical of military intervention, expressed his scepticism and demanded a congressional vote:
While we all condemn the atrocities in Syria, the US was not attacked. The President needs congressional authorisation for military action and I call on him to come to Congress for a proper debate on our role.
Our prior interventions in this region have done nothing to make us safer and Syria will be no different.
Democrats struck a more unified tone and emphasised the need for congressional approval. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said in a statement:
Any longer-term or larger military operation in Syria by the Trump administration will need to be done in consultation with the Congress …
It is the president’s responsibility to inform the legislative branch and the American people about his larger policy in Syria, as well as the legal basis for this action and any additional military activities in that country.
This was echoed in far more strident terms by Ted Lieu, a Democratic congressman from California, who proclaimed the move “illegal”:
March to war in #Syria without a strategy is both dangerous and ILLEGAL. #Trump cannot go to war against #Assad w/o congressional approval. pic.twitter.com/OFepCDLUVH
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) April 7, 2017
In Florida, national security adviser HR McMaster has told reporters that Trump was given three options for retaliation against Syria following the chemical weapons attack.
McMaster says the president told advisers to focus on two of those options, and made the final decision on Thursday.
Tillerson says the strikes show that Trump is “prepared to take decisive action to respond to heinous acts”.
Happening now: Sec of State Rex Tillerson and National Security adviser H.R. McMaster answering questions form media re: Syria w/ @PressSec. pic.twitter.com/2kYr2vZ7Ub
— Dan Scavino Jr. (@Scavino45) April 7, 2017
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the Shayrat airbase had been used to store chemical weapons used by the regime until 2013, when a deal was struck with the US and Russia to remove its declared arsenal.
Davis said it was used to deliver the chemical weapons dropped on Khan Sheikhun on Tuesday, but could not confirm whether any chemical weapons were still at the site.
However, he stressed that the targets were chosen carefully to avoid the risk of hitting those weapons:
This was a place that prior to 2013 was one of their main chemical weapons storage sites. A lot of those sites were dismantled at the time as they were seeking to comply, but they obviously began using them again for that purpose.
The things that were targeted were not where we assessed chemical weapons were.
The places we targeted were the things that made the airfield operate. It’s the petroleum facilities, it’s the aircraft radar, what they use for takeoff and landing, as well as air-defence radar. It’s the sites that are specific to making it operate, as well as hangars and aircraft themselves.
Updated
Here’s the full statement from the Pentagon about the strike.
Key points:
- Russia was alerted in advance.
- 59 Tomahawk land attack missiles (TLAM) were launched from two US warships, USS Porter and USS Ross, in the Mediterranean.
- Targets at the al-Shayrat airbase included aircraft, shelters, ammunition supplies, fuel storage and radars.
- The US believes the strike has “severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure”.
PENTAGON: At direction of POTUS, U.S. forces conducted cruise missile strike against a Syrian Air Force airfield today at about 8:40 pm EDT pic.twitter.com/TEac56cQee
— Dan Linden (@DanLinden) April 7, 2017
Updated
Pentagon: Russia notified before strike
The Pentagon has confirmed it used a hotline for minimising the risk of aerial combat between US and Russian jets in eastern Syria to alert Russia of the strike against its Syrian client.
The Russians are sure to have routed that warning to Assad, raising immediate questions about what the strike will have accomplished, and also signalling that the US does not seek escalation.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said:
Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line. US military planners took precautions to minimise risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield.
We are assessing the results of the strike. Initial indications are that this strike has severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment at Shayrat airfield, reducing the Syrian government’s ability to deliver chemical weapons.
The use of chemical weapons against innocent people will not be tolerated.
Tillerson tells reporters that the strike was “proportionate” and the US has a “high degree of confidence” that sarin gas was used in this week’s attack in Idlib.
Tillerson: Russia 'complicit or incompetent' over Syria chemical weapons deal
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson and national security adviser HR McMaster are also now briefing reporters at Mar-a-Lago shortly; they were in Florida to consult with Trump ahead of the strike.
Tillerson says Russia has failed to carry out its responsibilities under the 2013 agreement designed to rid Assad of his chemical weapons stocks.
He says Moscow was “either complicit or incompetent” in its handling of the deal.
Here’s the Trump speech – you can read the comments in full a little further down this blog here:
.@POTUS Trump delivers statement on targeted, military strike on airfield in #Syria from where chemical attack was launched. pic.twitter.com/N54VvI88sc
— Department of State (@StateDept) April 7, 2017
Florida Senator Marco Rubio has also welcomed the strike. In a statement, he said:
I salute the bravery and skill of the men and women of our armed forces who conducted this mission. Tonight’s strike against the Assad regime’s Shayrat airbase will hopefully diminish his capacity to commit atrocities against innocent civilians.
By acting decisively against the very facility from which Assad launched his murderous chemical weapons attack, President Trump has made it clear to Assad and those who empower him that the days of committing war crimes with impunity are over.
What must follow is a real and comprehensive strategy to ensure that Assad is no longer a threat to his people and to US security, and that Russia no longer has free rein to support his regime.
Trump: full comments
Here are the full remarks made by the president to reporters in Florida:
My fellow Americans,
On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians using a deadly nerve agent.
Assad choked out the lives of innocent men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in 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 United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.
There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention, and ignored the urging of the UN security council.
Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically.
As a result the refugee crisis continues to deepen and the region continues to destabilise, threatening the United States and its allies.
Tonight I call on all civilised 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.
We ask for god’s wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world.
We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed.
And we hope that as long as America stands for justice that peace and harmony will in the end prevail.
Goodnight and god bless America and the entire world. Thank you.
Updated
Syrian state TV has responded – albeit without much detail – to the US strike.
According to Reuters, state TV has reported:
American aggression targets Syrian military targets with a number of missiles.
Trump speaks on Syria strike
Donald Trump is speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago.
He says Assad used deadly nerve gas to kill many Syrians.
Tonight he ordered a “targeted military strike” on the airfield from which that chemical weapons attack was launched.
These strikes were, he said, in the “vital national security interest” of the US.
He said he was calling on all “civilised nations” to stop the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria.
The US military has launched a cruise missile volley at Syrian airfields, making the US a direct combatant for the first time against Bashar al-Assad.
Donald Trump, who for years signalled comfort with leaving Assad in power, abruptly switched course after seeing images of children gassed to death in Idlib province after Assad unleashed sarin gas in his latest chemical weapons attack.
The strike comprised dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the guided-missile destroyers USS Ross and Porter in the eastern Mediterranean. An airfield near Homs was targeted, signalling a limited initial engagement. The US did not target Syria’s formidable air defences, as it does before a concerted airpower campaign.
Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both armed services committee hawks who have been sharply critical of Trump even as they have long sought an attack on Assad, praised Trump on Thursday evening.
In a joint statement, they said:
We salute the skill and professionalism of the US armed forces who carried out tonight’s strikes in Syria. Acting on the orders of their commander-in-chief, they have sent an important message: the United States will no longer stand idly by as Assad, aided and abetted by Putin’s Russia, slaughters innocent Syrians with chemical weapons and barrel bombs.
Tomahawks are sophisticated missiles with the ability to shift course in the air, making them analogous to drones on a one-way mission. Syria’s formidable, Russian-supplied air defences, largely along the Mediterranean coast, have long prompted warnings from US military officials against attacking Assad.
CNN reports that the missile launches took place around an hour ago, at 8.45 ET – that would have been 3.45am in Syria. The targets at the military airbase included runways, aircraft and fuel points.
The map shows al-Shayrat airfield, a Syrian military site close to Homs, which was targeted by around 60 US Tomahawk missiles.
It’s currently Friday 4.30am in Syria. It is not yet clear precisely what time the strikes were carried out.
Donald Trump is expected to address the nation shortly. We’ll cover that live here.
It’s currently 9.30pm in Florida, where the president is hosting his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Earlier, en route to Florida, Trump had been vague about his intentions.
He told reporters on Air Force One:
I think what happened in Syria is a disgrace to humanity, and he’s there, and I guess he’s running things, so something should happen.
Associated Press has more details on the strike.
It says the US has attacked a Syrian airbase using around 60 cruise missiles.
US officials said the Tomahawk missiles were fired from two warships in the Mediterranean Sea, targeting the Syrian government-controlled airbase.
The move came after Trump held meetings with the secretary of defense, James Mattis, and national security adviser HR McMaster at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, where the president is currently hosting his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
Simultaneously, the joint chiefs were briefed at the Pentagon for several hours on Thursday.
As my colleagues Spencer Ackerman and Julian Borger report:
Senior US military commanders have long sounded warnings over involving the US in Syria’s grueling, multifaceted civil war, but the Pentagon is now said to be considering a range of options for standoff missile strikes against Assad regime targets.
Discussions are likely to center on whether the strikes would be punitive and limited – to destroy specific aircraft, airstrips or chemical weapons infrastructure – or the beginning of a broader campaign to oust a ruler whom only days ago the Trump administration was prepared to leave in power.
It is further unclear what, if any, US planning exists for a post-Assad Syria should the US seek to oust Assad and inherit a fractious, violent country.
News is breaking that the US has launched missile strikes against Syria.
NBC News reports that strikes were launched on al-Shayrat airfield, a Syrian military site close to Homs.
Reports from NBC and CNN say more than 50 Tomahawk missiles were fired.
This follows an apparent change of heart by Donald Trump over action in Syria, sparked by Tuesday’s chemical weapons attack in Idlib that killed more than 70 people.
We will be following developments here on the live blog as they unfold.
For crucial background, Kareem Shaheen has this exclusive on-the-ground report on conditions at the site of the attack, Khan Sheikhun.
