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U.S. Launches Military Strikes Against Syria
Topic Started: Apr 6 2017, 09:41 PM (210 Views)
Webster
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.....reports coming in of U.S. military strikes against Syrian targets over the past hour in response to Tuesday's horrific gas attack in northern Syria.....


(The Guardian) News is breaking that the US has launched missile strikes against Syria.

NBC News reports that strikes were launched on al-Shayrat airfield, a Syrian military site close to Homs.

Reports from NBC and CNN say more than 50 Tomahawk missiles were fired.

This follows an apparent change of heart by Donald Trump over action in Syria, sparked by Tuesday’s chemical weapons attack in Idlib that killed more than 70 people.

We will be following developments here on the live blog as they unfold.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) In addition, Shaun Walker reports, there’s a big round of diplomacy ahead in Russia next week: US secretary of state Rex Tillerson is due in Moscow on Wednesday and is expected to meet with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and president Vladimir Putin. Boris Johnson is in Moscow on Monday and will meet Lavrov.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Iran has condemned the US missile strike on Syria, Associated Press reports: Foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said the “unilateral action is dangerous, destructive and violates the principles of international law”, in a report carried Friday by the semi-official ISNA news agency.

Iran is one of the biggest supporters of Assad and its hardline paramilitary Revolutionary Guard is deeply involved in the war.

Ghasemi described Iran as “the biggest victim of chemical weapons in recent history”, referencing Iraqi use of the weapons during its 1980s war. He said Iran condemned the missile launch “regardless of the perpetrators and the victims” of Tuesday’s chemical weapons attack in Syria.

He also warned it would “strengthen terrorists” and further add to “the complexity of the situation in Syria and the region”.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Kremlin response: 'significant damage to US-Russia ties'
--In its first public response to the airstrikes, the Kremlin has issued a strong statement condemning the US move as “aggression against a sovereign nation”.

Moscow said the strikes had been carried out on an “invented pretext” and claimed the Syrian army did not have chemical weapons.

The strikes, it said, would do “significant damage to US-Russia ties” and created a “serious obstacle” to creating an international coalition to defeat Isis.

Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said, views the strikes as an attempt to deflect world attention from civilian deaths in Iraq – where at least 150 people died in a series of coalition airstrikes in Mosul last month.
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Webster
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Live Feeds of events in Syria.....
(1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/apr/07/us-syria-response-donald-trump-assad-pentagon-live
(2) http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-39521332
(3) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/07/donald-trump-launches-us-air-strikes-against-assad-regime-syria/
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Webster
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(The Guardian) The Turkish deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmuş, has backed the US strikes. Speaking on Turkish Fox TV, Kurtulmuş said he hoped the operation would contribute to achieving peace in Syria, and said the international community needed to maintain pressure on Assad.

The Kremlin has made its first comment, with Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov making an angry statement. Peskov said Putin sees the strikes on Syria as “aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law, and under a false pretext”.

Peskov claimed Syria has no chemical weapons, and that the destruction of them has been monitored by international observers. He said Trump’s move would have consequences for the relationship between the two countries.

“With this step Washington has struck a significant blow to Russian-American relations, which were already in a sorry state,” said Peskov.

No word yet on any concrete response, though.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) While Moscow has labelled the strikes “an aggression” and warned that they were “a significant blow to Russian-American relations, which were already in a sorry state”, the US earlier caused confusion with conflicting messages over whether Russia had been informed in advance about the attack on the airbase.

Secretary of state Rex Tillerson told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that it had not: There were no discussions or prior contacts, nor had there been any since the attack with Moscow.

But the Pentagon said Russia had been alerted in advance, through military channels.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the Russians were informed in “multiple conversations” on Thursday, through the “deconfliction channel” – a communications channel to the Russian base at Latakia used to avoid collisions or exchanges of fire between US and allied planes and Russian planes: There are Russians at the base and we took extraordinary precautions to not target the area where the Russians are.

This will raise many questions, says Guardian US national security editor Spencer Ackerman: The Russians are sure to have routed that warning to Assad, raising immediate questions about what the strike will have accomplished.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Communication between the US and Russia ahead of the strikes took place via the so-called “deconfliction line”, which is controlled by the US military and operates out of the al-Udeid airbase in Qatar.

It is used typically to protect pilots from both countries as they fly sorties over Syria, Associated Press reports, to ensure they do not attack each other, and to avoid the possibility of midair collisions.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the Russians were informed of the imminent strikes in “multiple conversations” through the deconfliction line on Thursday.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Japan has become the latest country to offer backing for the US strikes against the Syrian airbase, joining the UK, Australia, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said the nerve gas attack earlier this week justified the retaliation: Many innocent people became victims from the chemical attacks. The international community was shocked by the tragedy that left many young children among the victims. Japan supports the US government’s determination to prevent the spread and use of chemical weapons.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Six dead in strike: Syrian army (3:15am)
--Reuters reports a statement from the Syrian army, which says the missile strikes killed six people and caused “big material losses”. The army accuses the US of “blatant aggression” against the airbase, and says its response will be to continue to “crush terrorism” and restore “peace and security to all Syria”.
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Webster
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(The Guardian)[ Fallon: no UK military intervention in Syria
--The UK defence secretary Michael Fallon has told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: Our reaction is we fully support what the Americans have done. It’s limited; it’s wholly appropriate.

Fallon said the UK was not asked by the Americans to “get involved” in any action against the Assad regime.

James Mattis, Fallon’s US counterpart, made it clear it was a US operation, he said.

Fallon said the US “has not declared war” on Syria: The Americans have made it clear the attack last night was limited.

But he said the “message” the UK government took from the action was that if Assad used chemical weapons again, the Americans would respond again.

Fallon ruled out UK military intervention in Syria:

We’ve all got to work much harder. We’re not committed to military action against Syria. Our parliament considered that before, back in 2013, and turned it down. But we are involved in trying to get a political settlement in Syria and we will all be working harder to do that now.

He called on Russia to use its influence to bring violence in Syria to an end.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) With the UK, Australia, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Japan offering strong backing for the US strikes, Indonesia has given a more cautious response.

Foreign ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir told Reuters via text message that Indonesia strongly condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria but added: At the same time, Indonesia is concerned with unilateral actions by any parties, including the use of Tomahawk missiles, in responding to the chemical weapon attack tragedy in Syria.

China, which has repeatedly blocked UN resolutions against Assad, has now issued its official response to the US strikes on Syria.

Speaking at a press conference in Beijing, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, stopped short of explicitly condemning the US airstrikes but said China had always been opposed to the “use of force”.

Hua said China also opposed “the use of chemical weapons by any country, organisation or individual, in any circumstance and for any purpose”.

There was now an urgent need to prevent a “further deterioration” of the situation in Syria, Hua added.
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Webster
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--#BREAKING Russia calls for UN Security Council meeting on US Syria strikes (AFP News Agency, 3:44am 7 April 2017)

--#BREAKING Russia 'halts' agreement with US to avoid clashes in Syria airspace: ministry (AFP News Agency, 3:43am 7 April 2017)
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Webster
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(The Guardian) New Zealand has joined the list of nations backing the airstrikes, with prime minister Bill English saying the US action was supported by NZ.

Foreign minister Murray McCully said: It is becoming clear that Syrian government forces were responsible for the outrageous attacks where chemical weapons were used.

These events are horrific. It is critical that the international community emphatically demand an end to this violence, and that the Syrian government be held to account.

In the absence of an adequate response from the United Nations security council, we can understand why the United States has taken targeted unilateral action to try and prevent further such attacks by the Syrian regime.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Sources: Russian personnel at airbase before gas attack
--Sources have told the Guardian that US intelligence officials believe Russian personnel were at al-Shayrat airbase when sarin was loaded on to a Syrian jet. They have not established whether the Russians knew it was happening.

The base covers an area of more than 8 sq km and has two runways and dozens of buildings, silos and storage facilities.

Syrian opposition figures claim to have identified the pilot allegedly responsible for bombing Khan Sheikhun at about 6.30am on 4 April. Five hours later, close to 11.30am, a hospital treating victims from the attack was hit by a conventional bomb, dropped from a jet.

The sources say that on both occasions, a Russian Sukhoi was monitored by ground radar and aerial reconnaissance flying over the town. Flashes were picked up on the ground, indicating that ordnance had been dropped.

The air space over northern Syria is monitored heavily by Turkey, the US and Russia, and all three have precise knowledge of whose jets are in the air and where they fly.
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(The Guardian) France: Assad Bears "Full Responsibility"
--France was among the countries informed by the US ahead of the strikes, the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said.

“I was told by Rex Tillerson during the night,” Ayrault said, calling the missile strike “a warning [to] a criminal regime”.

The office of the French president, François Hollande, issued a statement confirming he had spoken with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel: The president and the German chancellor held talks on the telephone this morning on the situation in Syria.

Following the chemical massacre on April 4 in Khan Sheikhun in the north-west of Syria, a military installation of the Syrian regime used for chemical bombing was destroyed last night by US strikes. We have been informed. Assad bears full responsibility for this development. Its continued use of chemical weapons and mass crimes can not go unpunished …

France and Germany therefore continue their efforts with partners in the United Nations framework to sanction the most appropriate criminal acts related to the use of chemical weapons banned by all treaties.

We call on the international community to come together for a political transition in Syria, in accordance with resolution 2254 of the security council and the Geneva communiqué.
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