Fires a barrage of missiles at his airbase in response to Syrian govt's alleged chemical attack this week; kills 9 civilians; Russia denounces 'aggression'
In images released by the US Navy, the guided-missile destroyer USS Porter conducts strike operations. Pic/AFP
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Palm Beach/Moscow/Beirut: The US fired cruise missiles yesterday at a Syrian airbase from which President Donald Trump said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched, the first direct US assault on the government of Bashar al-Assad in six years of civil war.
In the biggest foreign policy decision of his presidency so far, Trump ordered the step his predecessor, Barack Obama, never took: directly targeting the Syrian military for its suspected role in a poison gas attack that killed at least 70 people.
Syrian news agency SANA reported that the strike killed nine civilians, including four children. It said five of the civilians, among them three children, were killed in the village of Shayrat just outside the base of the same name.
"An American missile also hit the village of Al-Hamrat, which killed four civilians including a child," it added. "Another seven civilians were wounded when a missile hit homes in Al-Manzul, 4 km from the Shayrat air base."
The attack catapulted Washington into confrontation with Russia, which has military advisers on the ground.
"Years of previous attempts at changing Assad's behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically," Trump said as he announced the attack from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. "Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack," he said of Tuesday's chemical weapons strike, which Western countries blame on Assad's forces. "No child of God should ever suffer such horror."
US officials said the strike was a "one-off", intended to deter future chemical attacks.
59
No. of cruise missiles US said it fired at the Shayrat base
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