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U.S. Launches Military Strikes Against Syria
Topic Started: Apr 6 2017, 09:41 PM (208 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) Rebel Free Syrian Army welcomes airstrikes but fears retaliation – reports
--The Free Syrian Army has released a statement welcoming the US airstrikes in Syria but has warned the US “responsibility is still big and does not end with this operation”, Reuters reports. The rebel group said it was afraid of acts of revenge against civilians by Assad and his allies and said military operations targeting airbases and banned weapons should continue.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) The situation in Syria “amounts to an international armed conflict” following the US airstrike on a Syrian airbase, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said.

Iolanda Jaquemet, its spokeswoman, said: “Any military operation by a state on the territory of another without the consent of the other amounts to an international armed conflict. So according to available information [about] the US attack on Syrian military infrastructure, the situation amounts to an international armed conflict.”

ICRC officials were raising the attack with US authorities as part of ongoing confidential dialogue with parties to the conflict, she added.
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Webster
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--GENEVA (AP) _ UN Syria envoy tells AP his office is in `crisis mode' after US strike, calls emergency meeting in Geneva. (Ken Thomas, Associated Press - 7 April 2017)
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Webster
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(The Guardian) The chair of the United Nations Association UK has questioned the wisdom of the US hit on Shayrat airbase. Stewart Wood said: “It’s unclear how US airstrikes will make civilians safer.”

In a blog post, Lord Wood of Anfield wrote: “Unilateral action without broad international backing through the UN, without a clear strategy for safeguarding civilians, and through military escalation risks further deepening and exacerbating an already protracted and horrific conflict, leaving civilians at greater, not lesser, risk of atrocities.”

He added that by circumventing the UN “we reduce both legitimacy and effectiveness, as a course of action that does not have the broad support of regional powers and the international community, channelled through UN systems and processes, can have little chance of success in leading to a more stable Syria”.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Donald Trump and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, are meeting for a second day at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as planned on Friday, AP reports.

Their first-night summit dinner wrapped up shortly before the US announced the missile barrage on an airbase in Syria on Thursday night.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) US lawmakers from both parties have backed the airstrikes on Syria and urged Trump to spell out a broader strategy for dealing with the conflict.

“I am hopeful these strikes will convince the Assad regime that such actions should never be repeated,” said Senator Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat.

But Warner, who said he had been briefed on the strikes by the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, urged Trump, a Republican, to lay out his plans for the multi-sided Syria conflict. “President Trump has said repeatedly that his objective in Syria is to defeat [Islamic State militants]. Last night’s strike was aimed at a different objective,” he said in a statement. “President Trump needs to articulate a coherent strategy for dealing with this complex conflict, because the consequences of a misstep are grave.”

The armed services committee chairman, Senator John McCain, who has long called for more aggressive action against Assad, told MSNBC: “The signal I think that was sent last night ... was a very, very important one.” But the Arizona Republican also said: “Despite all the enthusiasm we see this morning, if I might quote Churchill, it’s the end of the beginning not the beginning of the end.”

Trump, McCain added, should be “prepared to take other action”, including establishing safe zones within Syria and further arming and training of anti-Assad rebels.

Several lawmakers said Trump should seek the approval of Congress if he decides to take additional military action in Syria. Senator Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said the strikes in Syria could send a message to other US adversaries such as North Korea. “I think the time has come for some of these countries to be worried about us a little bit, not us always worried about what they might do,” Rubio told Fox News.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) UN secretary general António Guterres appeals for restraint
--The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed to parties involved in the Syrian conflict for restraint to avoid adding to the suffering of Syria’s people. “Mindful of the risk of escalation, I appeal for restraint to avoid any acts that could deepen the suffering of the Syrian people,” he said in a statement.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Donald Trump has jumped into a quagmire with his eyes shut, writes Richard Wolffe.

It may be hard to believe, but Donald Trump is even more simplistic than George W Bush in matters of war. George W Bush enjoyed all the certainty of a very simple man: you were either with us or against us, good or evil, marching for democracy or plotting terrorist attacks.
-Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/07/donald-trump-jumped-quagmire-eyes-shut

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has said the US airstrikes in Syria are a “foolish” move that will lead to serious regional tensions.

Hezbollah, which supports Assad, said in a statement the strike would not demoralise the Syrian army or negatively affect its allies. It added the US military action was a “service” to Israel and its “ambitions in the region”.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Mustafa Muhammed Ieed al-Azreq, 30, from Khan Sheikhun, told the Guardian’s Mona Mahmood about Tuesday’s attack. He said: I’m a maths teacher at a high school in Khan Sheikhun. I was sleeping at home when I heard a sound of a warplane and then four bangs. I ran to the roof to see what was going on. I saw that the attack was almost 300m from where I live.

I ran down to check the website that we, locals of Khan Sheikhun, have set up to warn each other of any possible arial attack.

The page started to warn people not to go nearby the site of the attack to avoid inhaling the poisonous gas. The situation was terrible, but still I could not stop myself running inside attacked houses, breaking the doors and taking out the victims with some other volunteers.

When I broke into one of the houses, I saw a guy was lying unconscious on stairs, some others in the centre of the house. We took them out but I myself inhaled some of the poisonous gas, the smoke was above our head and we were full of grief at the horrible scenes.

We started to suck the poison out of the victims by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, to help save their lives.

I did that procedure with three victims till I myself started to feel dizzy and my head was spinning. I evacuated seven kids, by chance one of them was still alive and breathing. His name is Mustafa al-Khalid, 15. I felt the pulse in his hand while all the other seven member of his family had died in the house. I put him in my own car and took him to the nearest medical centre where I myself fainted later.

I have my son, my two brothers and parents living with me, they all went to another village to escape the gas. The warplanes are still hovering on Khan Sheikhun where you can smell only death. It is a death without blood.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Muhammed AlRuru, 35, from Khan Sheikhun, told Mona Mahmood: I live almost 200m west of where the chemical attack took place. I saw a yellow cloud when I was releasing my sheep. I ran first to the basement, but after 10 minutes I and other locals headed to find out if there were any victims.

I saw my cousin, Usama, lying on the floor. I threw some water on him and stopped one of the cars to take him to a makeshift medical spot. It seems that Usama went to check on his brother’s family but he inhaled some gas and collapsed.

My children were also affected – they were vomiting and their eyes were red, but they are OK. I kept going to the site with other locals searching for survivors.

The situation is difficult here, there are some moments when we envy those who had died especially when the warplanes show on the skies. The kids are terrified, and we can’t do anything.

After the attack, I took part in burying more than 28 victims. I do not find it easy to go back again to the bereaved site, it is very painful to walk among the relatives of the victims who are busy checking who is dead or who is still alive. It is a human disaster by all means and we do not know when the machine of death in Syria will stop.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, has said the US had insisted that the emergency meeting of the UN security council be held in the open so that “any country that chooses to defend the atrocities of the Syrian regime will have to do in full public view, for all the world to hear”.
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(The Guardian) Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev: US strike 'good news for terrorists'
--In a post on Facebook, the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has written about “completely ruined relations” between Russia and the US. He said: That’s it. The last remaining election fog has lifted. Instead of an overworked statement about a joint fight against the biggest enemy, Isis (Islamic State), the Trump administration proved that it will fiercely fight the legitimate Syrian government, in a tough contradiction with international law and without UN approval, in violation of its own procedures stipulating that the Congress must first be notified of any military operation unrelated to aggression against the US. On the verge of a military clash with Russia.

Nobody is overestimating the value of pre-election promises, but there must be limits of decency. Beyond that is absolute mistrust. Which is really sad for our now completely ruined relations. And which is good news for terrorists.

One more thing. This military action is a clear indication of the US president’s extreme dependency on the opinion of the Washington establishment, the one that the new president strongly criticised in his inauguration speech. Soon after his victory, I noted that everything would depend on how soon Trump’s election promises would be broken by the existing power machine. It took only two and a half months.

-Read more: https://www.facebook.com/Dmitry.Medvedev/posts/10154257290791851
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Webster
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(The Guardian) This photo was taken immediately after the US airstrike, and shows Trump receiving a briefing on Syria from his national security team while in Mar-a-Lago.
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(The Guardian) The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, appeared in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Friday, saying the US attack on Syria was “necessary”, writes Julien Gignac.

“In the face of heinous war crimes, all civilised peoples must speak with one voice,” he said. “That is why Canada fully supports in the United States’ limited, focused action to degrade the Assad regime’s ability to launch such attacks.”

An ongoing push for diplomatic efforts was asserted. “We know that long-term solutions for Syria have to go by way of diplomacy,” he said.

Trudeau said he had spoken with Donald Trump on Friday morning, emphasising “that Canada agrees that Assad’s repeated use of chemical weapons must not continue”.

Trudeau stated that he had been informed of the US offensive about an hour in advance.

“We emphasised that we certainly believe that the Assad regime needs to be held to account against its civilians, particularly the use of chemical weapons against children and innocents, and further degrading their capacity to continue such attacks is in the interest of the entire international community and the path to peace for Syria,” he said.
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(The Guardian) The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he supported the “strong and clear message” sent by the US airstrike.

The Israeli military said it had been informed in advance of the strike. “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,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said. “Israel fully supports President Trump’s decision and hopes that this message of resolve in the face of the Assad regime’s horrific actions will resonate not only in Damascus, but in Tehran, Pyongyang and elsewhere.”

Hours after those remarks, the US vice-president, Mike Pence, called the Israeli premier and thanked him in Trump’s name for the Israeli support of the US attack in Syria, Netanyahu’s office said. Pence had also “updated Netanyahu on the details of the attack and its outcome”, it said.

“Netanyahu reiterated the need to prevent the distribution and use of chemical weapons,” his office said.
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