U.S. Military Attacks Targets In Syria

Explosions lit up the sky Friday over the Syrian capital of Damascus as President Trump announced on television that the United States and European allies had launched missile strikes against government targets to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a suspected chemical attack against civilians in the war-ravaged country.

Trump and U.S. allies have blamed Assad for the chemical attack, which killed more than 40 people near Damascus last weekend. Assad has denied involvement but White House officials said earlier Friday that they had intelligence implicating the Syrian government, and The New York Times reported earlier this week that its own review of the attack suggested that Syrian government helicopters dropped an unknown chemical compound that suffocated at least 43 people.

The first international inspectors sent to Syria to investigate last week's attack arrived Friday but the U.S.-led attacks began before the team could begin its work. It was unclear whether the investigation would go forward.

"The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children thrashing in pain and gasping for air," the president said in his address from the White House. "These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead."

U.S. military officials said more than 100 cruise and air-to-ground missiles were launched by U.S., British and French aircraft and navy ships during the assault, which they said targeted three facilities associated with the Syrian regime's chemical weapons program.

Gen. James F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a briefing Friday night that the strikes would result in the long-term degradation of Syria’s ability to research, develop and deploy chemical weapons. The targets were chosen, he said, to minimize the risk of civilian deaths or accidentally hitting Russian or Iranian troops in the country.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters about an hour after Trump's address that the missile strikes were part of a one-night operation and had ended. “Right now this is a one-time shot and I believe it has sent a very strong message to dissuade him to deter him from doing it again,” he said, referring to Assad.

Trump indicated in his remarks earlier, though, that the military attacks may not be over but merely on pause.

“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” he said when announcing the attacks.

Friday's missile strikes raised concerns that the United States could be further pulled into the war in Syria and a face a possible confrontation with Russia and Iran. Both countries have troops in Syria to defend the government from an uprising that began in 2011 with peaceful protests but within a year became a full-fledged war between rebels and the Syrian military. Since then, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, the Islamic State, Hezbollah and the United States have jumped in to help their chosen side with money, weapons or troops, and often all three.

Within 90 minutes of the strikes, the Russian ambassador to the United States warned of “consequences” for the allied attacks.

The war has killed an estimated half-million people and inured 1 million more. About 12 million Syrians — more than half the country's population — have been forced to flee their homes. More than 5.5 million have moved abroad and registered as refugees, according to The Washington Post.

The first missiles in the attack by the U.S. and its allies hit Syria at about 4 a.m. local time Saturday (9 p.m. Friday in the Eastern United States). Residents of Damascus woke to the sounds of multiple explosions shaking the city as missiles were sent flying toward a nearby military facility U.S. officials said was used for scientific research supporting the Syrian regime's chemical weapons program.

Shortly after the missile strikes ceased, hundreds of Syrians demonstrated in a landmark square in Damascus, waving victory signs in a show of defiance, The Associated Press reported. Many demonstrators waved Syrian, Russian and Iranian flags. Some clapped their hands and danced while others drove in convoys, honking their horns, according to the AP.

"We are your men, Bashar," they shouted as Syrian's state-controlled television broadcast them live from the square, where a large crowd of civilians mixed with men in uniforms.

How much damage the strikes inflicted is unknown.

The British Defense Ministry said early indications are that four of its Tornado GR4 warplanes successfully struck a military facility suspected of storing chemical agents about 15 miles west of the city of Homs.

The ministry said in a statement Saturday that the warplanes struck the former missile base with Storm Shadow missiles after "very careful analysis" to maximize the destruction of stockpiled chemicals and to minimize any risk of contamination to the surrounding area.

Russian and Syrian officials said Soviet-made air defense systems destroyed a substantial number of missiles in the air.

The Pentagon said it was still gathering information on the attacks and would share damage information later Saturday.

“Nothing is certain in these kinds of matters," Mattis told reporters. "However, we used a little over double the number of weapons this year than we used last year. It was done on targets that we believed were selected to hurt the chemical weapons program. We confined it to the chemical weapons-type targets.”

File photo, damage from war in Syria.

The attack was ordered with knowledge that Russia or Iran could choose to retaliate, Pentagon officials acknowledged. The risks include possible action in Syria against the 2,000 American military personnel deployed there to fight the Islamic State, attacks by Iranian-backed militias elsewhere in the Middle East and even devastating cyberattacks, which Russia has already demonstrated it could likely use to shut down U.S. nuclear power plants, water facilities and other critical infrastructure.

Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Post that he doubts the Syrian regime and Iran will retaliate for Friday's strikes because Trump has promised to leave Syria and an attack cold delay the departure of U.S. troops.

“Russia is the wild card out there,” Pollack told the Post, because President Vladimir Putin’s interests are bigger than Syria. “They are about how much [the U.S. is] allowed to act unrestrained and how much does he want to demonstrate that he can fight back.”

During his announcement of the attack, the president addressed the leaders of Iran and Russia directly.

"To Iran, and to Russia, I ask: What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women, and children?" he asked. "The nations of the world can be judged by the friends they keep. No nation can succeed in the long run by promoting rogue states, brutal tyrants, and murderous dictators."

While blaming Russia for allowing last week's attack, Trump invited him to join the U.S. and its allies in opposition to Assad.

"In 2013, President Putin and his government promised the world that they would guarantee the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons. Assad’s recent attack -- and today’s response -- are the direct result of Russia’s failure to keep that promise," the president said. "Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path, or if it will join with civilized nations as a force for stability and peace. Hopefully, someday we’ll get along with Russia, and maybe even Iran -- but maybe not."

Reaction on Capitol Hill was predictably mixed.

Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House Republican majority whip, supported the president's orders to attack. “President Trump is right to assert that the Assad regime’s evil acts cannot go unanswered,” he said in a written statement.

Democrats questioned whether Trump had any plan for what comes next.

“President Trump’s decision to launch airstrikes against the Syrian government without Congress’s approval is illegal and — absent a broader strategy — it’s reckless,” said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, according to the Times. He has long argued that presidents should request permission from Congress before taking military action.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said that “one night of airstrikes is not a substitute for a clear, comprehensive Syria strategy,” the paper reported.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said in London that the West had tried "every possible" diplomatic means before Friday's attack to stop Assad from using chemical weapons, The Associated Press reported. "But our efforts have been repeatedly thwarted" by Syria and Russia, she said.

"So there is no practicable alternative to the use of force to degrade and deter the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime," May said. "This is not about intervening in a civil war. It is not about regime change."

In a statement, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “Our response has been limited to the Syrian regimes facilities enabling the production and deployment of chemical weapons.”

Trump had threatened immediately after the suspected chemical attack that the U.S. would respond, warning Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers that they would have a “big price to pay.”

“If it’s Russia, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out and we’ll know the answers quite soon,” Trump said early in the week. “So we’re looking at that very strongly and very seriously.”

Last April, Trump ordered an attack on Syria to punish the government after it was accused of using chemical weapons. The United States fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base in that attack, but the facility was back in use a day later.

Photos: Top - U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House announcing military action against Syria. Photo by Mike Theiler - Pool/Getty Images. Second - File photo of damage in Syria from war. Credit: Shutterstock.