Syria strikes: Site of chemical attack hit again


SYRIA -- New airstrikes have targeted a town in northwest Syria that was hit by a deadly chemical attack earlier this week, activists said.




Key developments

The Syrian air force resumed flight operations at the base that the US had struck Friday. Pentagon probes possible Russia involvement in chemical attack that prompted US strike. US officials say about 20 planes were destroyed in Friday's attack on the Shayrat base. US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to UN says US 'prepared to do more' in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin said US strike was an "act of aggression."








"I think the Russians were caught off guard (by the US strikes)," Hertling said. "So they want to make sure they're tracking those (US) ships."

US quiet on next steps

The White House late Friday refused to say whether its strike on Shayrat airbase was a one-off action or part of a new strategy designed to hobble the military capabilities of President Bashar al-Assad. Nor would it say whether the US believed Assad should step down after the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun that killed at least 80 people and injured dozens more on Tuesday.

A satellite photo of the Shayrat air base after the US missile strikes.

The White House refused to discuss next steps. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said President Donald Trump would not "telegraph his next move." Speaking to reporters at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Spicer said the US missile attack was "very decisive, justified and proportional."

He declined to say whether Trump now believed Assad should relinquish power. "First and foremost the President believes that the Syrian government [and the] Assad regime should abide by the agreement they made not to use chemical weapons," Spicer said.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Russia had failed to honor an agreement to to guarantee the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons. "Clearly, Russia has failed in its responsibility to deliver on that commitment from 2013, he said. "So either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end of that agreement."


In a statement Saturday, Johnson said his priority was to continue contact with the US and others in the run-up to a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Italy on Monday and Tuesday, with the aim of building "coordinated international support for a ceasefire on the ground and an intensified political process."

Russia complicit?

US officials have said the Pentagon is looking for any evidence that the Russian government knew about or was complicit in Tuesday's chemical attack.

A US military official told CNN the Pentagon was examining specifically whether a Russian warplane had bombed a hospital in Khan Sheikhoun five hours after the initial chemical attack, with the aim of destroying evidence.

Russia flatly denies the allegations.

Samples are taken from the site of a suspected chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun.

Trump said he ordered the airstrike on the Shayrat base because the US believed aircraft that carried out the chemical attack were launched from there.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the US strike as "act of aggression" and said it violated international law.

Russian Senator Alexey Pushkov said that the disappointment was "mutual" and suggested that Tillerson's comments were made to gain "leverage" in upcoming US-Russia talks. Tillerson is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow next week.

He said on Twitter that the "conditions for negotiations in Moscow were even worse than (former Secretary of State John) Kerry's times."

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley warned Friday that the United States "is prepared to do more" in response to Syria's use of chemical weapons and delivered a sharp rebuke to Russia for its support of the Syrian regime.

"Every time Assad has crossed the line of human decency, Russia has stood beside him," Haley told the council. Russia "bears considerable responsibility" for Assad's use of chemical weapons, she said.
