World leaders back attack

Washington/Beirut : US, British and French forces struck Syria with more than 100 missiles yesterday in the first coordinated Western strikes against the Damascus government, targeting what they said were chemical weapons sites in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the military action from the White House, saying the three allies had “marshalled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality”.

Later he tweeted: “Mission accomplished”.

The bombing represents a major escalation in the West’s confrontation with Assad’s superpower ally Russia, but is unlikely to alter the course of a multi-sided war that has killed at least half a million people in the past seven years.

That in turn raises the question of where Western countries go from here, after a volley of strikes denounced by Damascus and Moscow as at once both reckless and pointless.

By morning, the Western countries said their bombing was over for now. Syria released video of the wreckage of a bombed-out research lab, but also of President Bashar al-Assad arriving at work as usual, with the caption “Morning of resilience”.

There were no immediate reports of casualties. Damascus’s allies saying the buildings hit had been evacuated in advance.

Russia had promised to respond to any attack on its ally, and said on Saturday that Syrian air defences had intercepted 71 of the missiles fired.

But the Pentagon said the United States had “deconfliction” contacts with Russia before and after the strikes, that Syrian air defence systems had been largely ineffective and there was no indication that Russian systems had been employed.

British Prime Minister Theresa May described the strike as “limited and targeted”, with no intention of toppling Assad or intervening more widely in the war. She authorised British action after intelligence showed Assad’s government was to blame for gassing the Damascus suburb of Douma a week ago, she said.

In a speech, she gave a vivid description of the victims of the alleged chemical strike that killed scores, huddling in basements as gas rained down. She said Russia had thwarted diplomatic efforts to halt Assad’s use of poison gas, leaving no option but force.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the strikes had been limited so far to Syria’s chemical weapons facilities. Paris released a dossier that it said showed Damascus was to blame for the poison gas attack on Douma, the last town holding out in a rebel-held swathe of territory near Damascus that government forces have recaptured this year.

“ONE-TIME SHOT”

Washington described its targets as a centre near Damascus for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weapons, a chemical weapons storage site near the city of Homs, and another site near Homs that stored chemical weapons equipment and housed a command post.

U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis called the strikes a “one-time shot”, although Trump raised the prospect of further strikes if Assad’s government again used chemical weapons.

“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” the U.S. president said in a televised address.

The Pentagon said there had been chemical weapons agents at one of the targets, and that, although there were other parts to Syria’s chemical weapons system, the strikes had significantly crippled its ability to produce such weapons.