US President Donald Trump announced he ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airfield, from which he claimed a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched, while declaring that the American strike against President Bashar Assad was in the United States’ ‘national security interest.” The US Navy said it fired some 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles from warships, the USS Porter and USS Ross, in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, against a Syrian airbase controlled by Assad’s forces in response to the poison gas attack on Tuesday in the rebel-held district of Idlib. An official response by the Syrian military said the strike against the air field has done massive damage to the military infrastructure of the government base and led to the death of six Syrian soldiers. Nevertheless, the Syrian military vowed to continue combating terrorism in the war-torn-country, while accusing the United States of siding with the Al-Qaeda linked Nusra front and the Islamic State.
“The U.S. carried out at 3:42 a.m. (0042 GMT) at dawn today a blatant aggression that targeted one of our air bases in the central region using several missiles, which led to the death of six martyrs and a number of wounded and extensive material damage.’’
Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed support for the American attack against the Syrian air-base. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement in which he said, “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,” While stressing that “Israel fully supports President Trump’s decision,” and “hopes this resolve in the face of the Assad regime’s horrific actions resonates not only in Damascus but in Tehran, Pyongyang & elsewhere.” Israel’s military also expressed its support for the American decision to attack, while noting that the IDF had been briefed in advance on the American attack.
The Israeli announcement of support for the US attack on Syria angered Russia. In a phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in what was supposed to be a conversation in which the Israeli leader expressed Israel’s condolences for the terror attack in St. Petersburg, unexpectedly, became a reprimand by the Russian president for the accusations made by Jerusalem that the Assad regime was behind the chemical attack in Idlib. Following the phone conversation between the two leaders, the Kremlin released a statement that said that Putin had stressed to Netanyahu that it was unacceptable to release baseless accusations before there is a full and unbiased investigation. Moscow asserts that the toxic gas was released following a Syrian strike that hit stockpiles of chemical warfare agents that were held by the rebels, including Al-Qaeda linked groups operating in that area. Russia further emphasized that there was no proof that Assad was behind the strike, condemning Washington for what Moscow said was its ‘rash decision to attack’.