Baghdad: In one of the biggest interventions by Western powers in Syria in its 7-year-old civil war, America and its two trusted allies France and Britain on early Saturday launched their combined air strikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. So far no casualty was reported from these airstrikes.
Eyewitnesses’ accounts and media reports suggest that more than 100 cruise missiles and air-to-land missiles were fired by the US and its Western allies from sea and air at military targets in Syria.
Eyewitnesses said several loud explosions were heard in Damascus and smoke was seen rising over the Syrian capital. They also said that Damascus’ Barzah area was badly hit. It was later confirmed by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford at a press briefing in Washington. He said targets of attack included a Syrian research facility in Barzah area of Damascus.
Earlier, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said the airstrikes were carried out in response to chemical gas attack on people in Syria by the Assad regime, leading to killing of dozens of people in the West Asian country last week.
“The authoritarian Assad regime didn’t get the message last year as it was hit by American missiles after it carried out chemical weapons attack against its own people. But it is time for all civilized nations to urgently unite in ending the Syrian civil war by supporting the United Nations backed Geneva peace process,” US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis.
In the 7-year-old bloody civil war the West Asian country, it is the biggest intervention which has brought the US and its allies against Russia, which had itself intervened in war to back the Bashar al-Assad regime in 2015, face to face with each other. Russia has warned the US and its allies that they should be prepared for consequences of attacks on Syria.
