The U.S. military has attacked a Syria-government airfield with 59 tomahawk missiles on Thursday evening, CNBC reports.
The missiles responding to a Tuesday chemical weapons attack targeted the Shayrat Airfield near Homs, a city in western Syria that is said to have been launched the chemical attack on rebel held area that killed civilians.
“Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike on the air field in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched… It is in this vital national security of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.” Said President Trump to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, where he ordered the strike
According to CNN, the strike is the first direct military action by the US against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s six-year civil war and represents a substantial escalation of the US military campaign in the region, which could be interpreted by the Syrian government as an act of war.
The U.S. defense official have called the U.S. strike a “one-off”. No casualties have been reported, the US says no people were targeted.
Syrian state TV, meanwhile, said, “American aggression targets Syrian military targets with a number of missiles.”
“At 3:42 am today, the United States of America committed a blatant act of aggression targeting one of our air bases in the Central Region with a number of missiles, leaving 6 people martyred and a number of others injured and causing huge material damage,” the Army’s Command said in a statement according to SANA
The Army’s Command said the US’s attempt to justify this aggression by saying that it is in response to the Syrian army’s use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun town in Idleb without yet determining the reality of and the perpetrators behind what happened there “sends wrong messages to the terrorist organizations that would embolden them further to use chemical weapons in the future every time they suffer heavy losses in the battlefield.”
The Command said that the US’ ‘act of aggression’ violates all international laws and conventions and aims at affecting the capabilities of the Syrian army in its fight against terrorism.
