Here’s the latest on the Syria bombing situation. President Donald Trump said US, British and French forces had launched airstrikes targeting sites associated with Syria’s chemical-weapons capabilities, a reprisal for an attack last week that killed at least 43 civilians and injured hundreds more.
The decision to strike was aimed at cutting off the production and use of chemical weapons in the country, Trump said at the White House on Friday night.
“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” Trump said in remarks from the White House, adding that the U.S. and its allies had “marshaled their righteous power.”
Trump urged Iran and Russia to withdraw their support for what he called Syria’s “barbarism and brutality.”
In a direct address to the two countries, he asked:
“What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men and women and children?”
The president on Monday had condemned the suspected chemical attack, calling it a “heinous” act and saying his administration would soon make “major decisions” on how to respond.
Last year, Trump said that the use of chemical weapons in Syria “crosses a lot of lines for me.”
On April 6, 2017, the Trump administration launched strikes on a Syrian-government airfield in retaliation for a chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun.
Trump has previously said that he wanted U.S. troops out of Syria by the fall. But his desire for a rapid withdrawal drew unanimous opposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon, the State Department and the intelligence community, who’ve argued that keeping the 2,000 U.S. soldiers currently in Syria is key to ensuring that the ISIS terror group does not make a comeback.
