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Syria latest: Trump orders air strikes against Assad regime

President orders armed forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with chemical weapons in the wake of gas attack on Douma

What we know so far

Donald Trump has launched air strikes alongside UK and French forces aimed at the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons facilities.

Moments after the president’s address finished, reports emerged of explosions in Damascus. A Pentagon briefing later confirmed three sites were hit in Damascus and Homs. Syrian air defences responded but the US said it has suffered no losses in the initial air strikes.

Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US, said “such actions will not be left without consequences” and said Moscow was being threatened. “Insulting the president of Russia is unacceptable and inadmissible,” he added.

The US president said the attack in Douma a week ago represented “a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use” by the Assad regime. He said: “We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents.”

The British prime minister, Theresa May, said she authorised targeted strikes to “degrade the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons capability and deter their use”. Taking a swipe at Russia, she said: “We cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalised – within Syria, on the streets of the UK, or anywhere else in our world. We would have preferred an alternative path. But on this occasion there is none.”

The UK’s Ministry of Defence said four Tornado jets flew from Cyprus as part of the strikes on Homs.

US defence secretary, James Mattis, said the US, UK and France had taken “decisive action” against Syria’s chemical weapon infrastructure and did not rule out further strikes. “Clearly the Assad regime did not get the message” last time, he said, referring to the response to the Ghouta chemical in 2017. He said the allies had “gone to great length to avoid civil and foreign casualties”.

French president Emmanuel Macron said the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime posed an “immediate danger for the Syrian people and our collective security.”

Source: www.theguardian.com