US-led strikes on Syria draw ire of Russia and allies

• US says ‘lock and loaded’ if Assad ‘used chemical weapons again’ while Russia tells the US to refrain from ‘transgressing international sovereignty’
• Syria says strikes were an attempt to ‘block the exposure of lies and fabrications’ as Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was all set to begin investigation in Ghouta
• Attack didn’t trigger a military response from Russia as ‘missiles had steered clear of Russian military bases’

DAMASCUS: Syria and its allies, particularly Russia, have warned of repercussions after the US and allies— Britain and France— pounded Syria with airstrikes early Saturday morning in a “flagrant violation of international law”.

Tensions between the two superpowers—Russia and US—had escalated over the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, which led to the US and Russia stepping up their war rhetoric.

In the early Saturday morning, US President Donald Trump announced the military action. As he spoke, explosions rocked Syrian capital Damascus. Trump said he was prepared to “sustain the response until Assad’s government stopped its use of chemical weapons”. In the afternoon, US President Donald Trump hailed the overnight military strike on Syria as “perfectly executed”.

Speaking of Assad and his suspected role in last week’s chemical weapons attack, Trump said, “These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead.”

UK Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron too were confident of the success of the strikes.PM May said: “The UK is ‘confident’ that air strikes carried out by Britain, the US and France on suspected chemical weapons facilities in Syria have been successful.”

It was “right and legal” to take action, she added.

In addition, the Western allies warned Syria that they could launch further missile strikes if chemical weapons were used again.

US forces were “locked and loaded” to strike again if Syria unleashed another chemical assault, said Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, at an emergency Security Council meeting called by Russia.

Later, Russia’s UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzia hammered away at Western allies for what he termed “aggression” that violated international sovereignty. UN Secretary General António Guterres said he hoped to send international inspectors to the missile attack targets in Syria.

Subsequently, the UNSC failed to adopt a Russian-drafted resolution to condemn “the aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic by the US and its allies in violation of international law and the UN Charter.”

Only Russia, China and Bolivia voted in favour of the draft resolution. Eight countries voted against the draft, while four abstained.

‘STRIKES ARE BARBARIC, BRUTAL’

Syria’s government denounced the strikes on its military installations as a “brutal, barbaric aggression” that violated international law.

“The Syrian Arab Republic condemns in the strongest terms the brutal American-British-French aggression against Syria, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law,” the foreign ministry said. State news agency SANA also reported the attack, but said it was “doomed to fail”.

Western powers blamed President Bashar al-Assad, but Syria and its ally Russia categorically denied the claims and accused the West of “fabricating” the incident to justify military action.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was set to begin its investigation inside the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma on Saturday, just hours after the strikes. The ministry said it was an “attempt to block the exposure of their lies and fabrications”.

“The timing of the aggression coincides with the arrival of the OPCW mission to Syria to investigate the alleged chemical attack in Douma, and mainly aims at hindering the mission’s work and preempting its results,” it said in comments carried by state news agency SANA.

It said the United States, Britain and France launched around 110 missiles on Syria, but air defences shot most of them down. The Russian military also said that Syrian air defence systems intercepted 71 out of 103 cruise missiles that were launched.

However, the Pentagon said a barrage of more than 40 Syrian surface-to-air missiles had “no material effect” on the allied attack, which McKenzie said struck their targets. None of the more sophisticated air defenses that Moscow has positioned in Syria were employed, he said. The general also denied assertions from Russian officials that some incoming missiles were intercepted by the Soviet-made anti-missile batteries used by Syrian forces.

At least six loud explosions were heard in Damascus in the early hours of Saturday and smoke was seen rising over the Syrian capital, a Reuters witness said. A second witness said the Barzah district of Damascus had been hit in the strikes. Barzah is the location of a major Syrian scientific research centre.

RUSSIA WARNS OF CONSEQUENCES:

The strikes didn’t go well with Syria’s allies, with Russia and Iran warning of repercussions. Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned this an “act of aggression” and said Russia would convene an emergency session of the UN security council over the attack.

In a statement released by the Kremlin, the Russian president denied evidence of a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma and said the strike would “have a destructive effect on the entire system of international relations”.

It did not appear late on Saturday morning that the attack would trigger a military response from Russia, as Moscow reported that the missiles had steered clear of Russian military bases in the country.

However, the remarks capped an angry response from across the Russian establishment to the strikes. Russia’s ambassador to the US warned of “consequences”, while a high-ranking Russian politician compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.

“First the ‘Arab Spring’ tested the Syrian people, then Islamic State, now ‘smart’ American rockets. The capital of a sovereign government, trying for years to survive under terrorist aggression, has been attacked, said Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

“You have to be quite abnormal to attack Syria’s capital just at the moment when it had a chance for a peaceful future,” she added.

Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov warned that such actions will have dire consequences. Trump “can be called Adolf Hitler No 2 of our time because, you see, he even chose the time that Hitler attacked the Soviet Union,” he said in reference to the early morning invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany in 1941.

‘MILITARY ACTION WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE’:

Meanwhile, Iran has also reacted sharply to the attacks.  “Undoubtedly, the United States and its allies, which took military action against Syria despite the absence of any proven evidence … will assume the responsibility for the regional and trans-regional consequences of this adventurism,”  Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by state media.

“The United States and its allies have no proof and, without even waiting for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to take a position, have carried out this military attack,” said the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that “Today’s dawn attack on Syria is a crime. I clearly declare that the presidents of the United States and France and the British prime minister are criminals.”

“The Syrian people will certainly answer these attacks and the people of the world should condemn this aggression,” said Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan.

The combined US, British and French assault appeared to be more intense than the strike Trump ordered almost exactly a year ago against a Syrian airbase in retaliation for an earlier chemical weapons attack that Washington attributed to Assad. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said twice as many weapons were used in the strikes on Saturday compared to last April’s strike.