WASHINGTON _ The Pentagon launched dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base late Thursday in retaliation for a gruesome poison gas attack this week that U.S. officials said was carried out by President Bashar Assad's forces.
Trump authorized the attack after he was briefed by Defense Secretary James N. Mattis in Palm Beach, Fla., where the president is hosting visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Two Navy destroyers patrolling in the eastern Mediterranean Sea fired lethal salvos of Tomahawk cruise missiles into eastern Syria from hundreds of miles offshore, well out of range of Syrian air defenses.
The target apparently was a small airfield used by Assad's warplanes in the government-held area in northeastern Syria.
The attack marks the first time the U.S. has deliberately targeted Assad's military in Syria's multi-sided civil war, now in its seventh year. Until now, the U.S. has focused only on targeting Islamic State militants.
