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US Says Russia Trying to Complicate Syria Chemical Weapons Investigation

April 17, 2018


FILE – State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing at the State Department in Washington, Aug. 9, 2017.

April 17, 2018 6:31 AM VOA News

Source Link: US Says Russia Trying to Complicate Syria Chemical Weapons Investigation

{Russia has already visited the site and didn’t bother to take a team of independent observers? Hmmm…very troubling. – LS}

WASHINGTON — 

The U.S. State Department says Russia has tried to block an international watchdog from investigating a suspected chemical attack in Syria “by making it more complicated” for the specialists to do their work.

“They probably want to do that because they recognize that the longer that a site goes untested the more that the elements, the chemicals, can start to disappear,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told Alhurra television.

The investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons arrived in Syria on Saturday, but so far have not been able to begin their work in Douma.

A Russian official says the OPCW team is set to visit the area east of Syria’s capital on Wednesday.

Russia has blamed the delays on airstrikes carried out Saturday by the United States, France and Britain on three Syrian chemical weapons facilities. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also said the mission was not allowed in because it lacked approval from the United Nation’s Department for Safety and Security.

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens during a meeting in Moscow, Russia, Friday, April 13, 2018.
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens during a meeting in Moscow, Russia, Friday, April 13, 2018.

U.N. officials in New York disputed the claim.

“The United Nations has provided the necessary clearances for the OPCW team to go about its work in Douma,” said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. “We have not denied the team any request for it to go to Douma.”

He added that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is very supportive of the investigation.

“The secretary-general wants to see the fact-finding mission have access to all the sites it needs to have access to, so that we can have the most thorough and full picture of the facts,” Dujarric said.

The U.S. envoy to the OPCW, Ken Ward, said Monday it was his understanding Russia had already visited the site and he raised concerns of tampering before the OPCW carries out its fact-finding mission.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied that accusation, telling the BBC he guarantees Russia “has not tampered with the site.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends a meeting in Moscow, Russia, April 5, 2018.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends a meeting in Moscow, Russia, April 5, 2018.

Lavrov said that evidence cited by the United States, Britain and France to justify Saturday’s missile attack was based “on media reports and social media.” He denied any chemical weapons attack had occurred, accusing Britain of staging the attack.

The Group of Seven leading industrialized nations issued a joint statement Tuesday endorsing the airstrikes.

“We fully support efforts made by the United States, the U.K. and France to decrease the capacity to use chemical weapons by the Assad regime and to prevent their future use,” the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, the United States and European Union said.

Syrian media reported another missile attack early Thursday in Homs province, but later said it was a false alarm and not an outside attack that triggered air defense systems.

Syrian media reported another missile attack early Thursday in Homs province, saying government air defenses shot down most of the missiles fired at an air base. The reports did not say who was responsible, and the U.S. military said neither it nor the coalition it leads was operating in that area at the time.

People stand in front of damaged buildings, in the town of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, near Damascus, Syria, April 16, 2018.
People stand in front of damaged buildings, in the town of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, near Damascus, Syria, April 16, 2018.

Nauert told Alhurra the United States is pushing for a renewed focus on the so-called Geneva process the United Nations began in 2012 as a roadmap for ending the Syrian conflict with a new constitution and elections.

“The only thing that I can hope that is positive that came out of the terrible news in Syria last week is to reinvigorate that political process,” she said. “So it is our hope now that countries will go back to the Geneva process and we’ll be able to make some progress there.”

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini made a similar call Monday ahead of a ministerial meeting, saying there is a clear need to push for re-launching the U.N.-led peace process.

 

Categories: Russia - Syrian war
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AIR STRIKES REPORTED IN SYRIA

April 17, 2018

Syrian media and eyewitnesses reported missile, anti-aircraft fire and fighter jets early Tuesday morning.

BY SETH J. FRANTZMAN, REUTERS APRIL 17, 2018 02:22

Source Link: AIR STRIKES REPORTED IN SYRIA

{Proxies need not apply. – LS}

Syrian media and locals reported air strikes and Syrian air defense launching rockets in response in the early hours of Tuesday.
According to initial reports, the strikes may have targeted Al-Sayrat airbase and rural Homs, as well as areas around Damascus.

Days after US-led airstrikes hit Homs and Damascus on April 14, Syrian Twitter accounts blamed Israel for alleged strikes on Tuesday morning. The first reports emerged around 1:30am. Al Sura Media claimed fighter jets had targeted Syria’s T4 airbase, where Iranian troops are alleged to be present.

Syrian state television showed pictures of a missile that was shot in the air above the base.

State television did not mention three missiles that were fired at Dumair military airport, northeast of Damascus, that pro-Iranian Hezbollah’s media service reported were intercepted by Syrian air defenses.

Opposition sources say Dumair airport is a major air base used in a large-scale military campaign waged by the Syrian army with Russian firepower that regained eastern Ghouta, a rebel enclave on the outskirts of Damascus.

On Monday Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem warned that Iran and Israel are nearing open war as tensions are very high in Syria.

Syria’s Sana Ajel news claimed anti-aircraft units responded to an attack in Shayrat airbase near Homs. That was the same airbase the US struck in 2017 in response to a chemical weapons attack at Khan Sheikhoun.

Reports of strikes at Shayrat airbase and areas south of Damascus were dismissed as rumors by some commentators online. Syria’s regime is gearing up for a battle with ISIS in Yarmouk in southern Damascus, and some said that the sounds of missiles might be related to that conflict.

However, Al-Mayadeen and other pro-regime channels showed video of a strange light, which they claimed was part of the airstrikes, hovering in the sky.

The Pentagon said that the US was not involved in any strikes Tuesday morning.

The last week has seen several reported strikes in Syria. The New York Times quoted an unnamed Israeli military source as saying Israel had carried out an April 9 air strike in Syria.

The map below shows the location of the reported strikes.

https://maphub.net/embed/28857

Categories: Israel and Iran
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The Real Next War in Syria: Iran vs. Israel

April 16, 2018

By Thomas L. Friedman Opinion Columnist New York Times

Source Link: The Real Next War in Syria: Iran vs. Israel

{Interesting opinion piece and reality check. – LS}

SYRIA-ISRAEL BORDER, Golan Heights — Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Syria is going to explode. I know, you have heard that one before, but this time I mean really explode. Because the U.S., British and French attack on Syria to punish its regime for its vile use of chemical weapons — and Russia’s vow to respond — is actually just the second-most dangerous confrontation unfolding in that country.

Even more dangerous is that Israel and Iran, at the exact same time, seem to be heading for a High Noon shootout in Syria over Iran’s attempts to turn Syria into a forward air base against Israel, something Israel is vowing to never let happen. This is not mere speculation. In the past few weeks — for the first time ever — Israel and Iran have begun quietly trading blows directly, not through proxies, in Syria.

And this quiet phase may be about to end.

Israel and Iran are now a hair-trigger away from going to the next level — and if that happens, the U.S. and Russia may find it difficult to stay out.

Let me try to explain what is unfolding from a lookout post on the Syrian-Israel border, where I stood a couple of days ago. To follow along at home, I highly recommend this website, which tracks the multiple interlocking Syrian conflicts in real time and is used by the U.N. observers here on the Golan Heights.

Let’s start with the fact that the latest U.S., British and French cruise missile punishment attack appears to be a one-off operation and the impact will be contained. Russia and Syria have little interest in courting another Western raid and raising the level of involvement in Syria by the three big Western powers. And the three Western powers do not want to get more deeply involved in Syria.

It is the potentially uncontained direct shooting war brewing between Israel and Iran that is much more likely and worrisome, because it may be about to enter round two.

Round one occurred on Feb. 10, when an Iranian drone launched by a Revolutionary Guards Quds Force unit operating out of Syria’s T4 air base, east of Homs in central Syria, was shot down with a missile from an Israeli Apache helicopter that was following it after it penetrated Israeli airspace.

Initial reports were that the Iranian drone was purely on a reconnaissance mission. But the official Israeli Army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis, said Friday that the drone’s flight path and Israel’s “intelligence and operational analysis of the parts of the Iranian unmanned vehicle” indicated that “the aircraft was carrying explosives” and that its mission was “an act of sabotage in Israeli territory.”

I have no ability to independently verify that claim. But the fact that the Israelis are putting it out should raise alarm bells. If it is true, it suggests that the Quds Force — commanded by Iran’s military mastermind Qassem Suleimani — may have been trying to launch an actual military strike on Israel from an air base in Syria, not just reconnaissance.

“This is the first time we saw Iran do something against Israel — not by proxy,” a senior Israeli military source told me. “This opened a new period.”

It certainly helps to explain why Israeli jets launched a predawn missile raid on the Iranian drone’s T4 home base last Monday. This would have been a huge story — Israel killed seven Iranian Quds Force members, including Col. Mehdi Dehghan, who led the drone unit — but it was largely lost in the global reaction to (and Trump tweets about) President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons two days earlier.

“It was the first time we attacked live Iranian targets — both facilities and people,” said the Israeli military source. And the Iranians not only openly announced their embarrassing losses through the semiofficial Fars news agency — they have played down previous indirect casualties from Israeli strikes in Syria — but then publicly vowed to take revenge.

“The crimes will not remain unanswered,” Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said during a visit to Syria.

Since then, senior Israeli defense officials have let it be known that if the Iranians were to strike back at Israeli targets, Israel may use the opportunity to make a massive counterstrike on Iran’s entire military infrastructure in Syria, where Iran is attempting to establish both a forward air base, as well as a factory for GPS-guided missiles that could hit targets inside Israel with much greater accuracy — inside a 50-meter radius — and deploy them from Syria and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

These defense officials say there is zero chance Israel will make the mistake it made in Lebanon — of letting Hezbollah establish a massive missile threat there — by letting Iran do the same directly in Syria.

Now you can understand why it is such a dangerous situation — even without the U.S., French and British punishment for Assad’s use of chemical weapons.

Iran claims it is setting up bases in Syria to protect it from Israel, but Israel has no designs on Syria; it actually prefers the devil it knows there — Assad — over chaos. And it has not intervened in the civil war there except to prevent the expansion of Iran’s military infrastructure there or to retaliate for rebel or Syrian shells that fell on Israel’s territory.

I understand Iran’s security concerns in the Gulf; it faces a number of hostile, pro-American Sunni Arab powers trying to contain its influence and undermine its Islamic regime. From Iran’s perspective, these are a threat.

But what is Iran doing in Syria?

Tehran’s attempt to build a network of bases and missile factories in Syria — now that it has helped Assad largely crush the uprising against him — appears to be an ego-power play by Iran’s Quds Force leader Suleimani to extend Iran’s grip on key parts of the Sunni Arab world and advance his power struggle with President Hassan Rouhani. Suleimani’s Quds Force now more or less controls — through proxies — four Arab capitals: Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad and Sana.

Iran has actually become the biggest “occupying power” in the Arab world today. But Suleimani may be overplaying his hand, especially if he finds himself in a direct confrontation with Israel in Syria, far from Iran, without air cover.

After all, even before this, many average Iranians were publicly asking what in the world is Iran doing spending billions of dollars — which were supposed to go to Iranians as a result of the lifting of sanctions from the Iran nuclear deal — fighting wars in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

That is surely one reason Iran has not retaliated — yet. Suleimani has to think twice about starting a full-scale, direct war with Israel, because of another big story many people have not noticed: Iran’s currency is collapsing back home. Consider this April 12 story on CNBC.com:

The Iranian rial “has plummeted to a record low amid growing economic and political uncertainty, causing a rush to the banks as Iranians desperately try to acquire U.S. dollars with exchanges forced to shut their doors to prevent long and chaotic lines.” The rial has lost one-third of its value just this year, the story noted.

Moreover, Israeli military officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin and Suleimani are no longer natural allies. Putin wants and needs a stable Syria where his puppet Bashar Assad can be in control and Russia can maintain a forward naval and air presence and look like a superpower again — on the cheap. Iran’s President Rouhani probably also prefers a stable Syria, where Assad has consolidated his power and that is not a drain on the Iranian budget. But Suleimani and the Quds Force seem to aspire to greater dominance of the Arab world and putting more pressure on Israel.

Unless Suleimani backs down, you are about to see in Syria an unstoppable force — Iran’s Quds Force — meet an immovable object: Israel.

Fasten your seatbelt.

Categories: Israel and Iran
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US PRIORITY IS TO ENSURE IRAN DOES NOT ‘TAKE OVER’ SYRIA, HALEY SAYS

April 15, 2018

Haley acknowledged regional concerns and said, “We all know our work in Syria is not done.”

BY MICHAEL WILNER APRIL 15, 2018 20:48 Via The Jerusalem Post

Source Link: US PRIORITY IS TO ENSURE IRAN DOES NOT ‘TAKE OVER’ SYRIA, HALEY SAYS

{Removing the ‘welcome mat’ – LS}

WASHINGTON – Deterring Iran’s entrenchment in Syria is one of US President Donald Trump’s top three priorities there, guiding his policy-making on where to station troops in the war-torn country and for how long, US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley asserted on Sunday.

Her statement comes amid reports of strains between the Trump administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over the US role in providing a buffer between Iranian troops and Israel’s border. Trump in recent weeks has vowed to pull US troops out of Syria entirely, prompting alarm in Jerusalem that Israel’s fight against Iran would be waged alone.

In interviews with a series of Sunday morning shows, Haley touted the success of a joint strike conducted by US, French and British forces over the weekend that sought to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad for his use of chlorine and sarin gases against civilians in the town of Douma on April 7.

She said the strike was prompted by the president’s commitment to prevent the normalization of chemical weapons use, calling it a top priority of his administration.

A second priority, Haley said, was the complete defeat of Islamic State forces that once held territory in Syria.

“Then, thirdly, we want to make sure that the influence of Iran doesn’t take over the area,” she said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “They continue to cause problems throughout the region, and we want to make sure that there is a hold.”

The allied strike on Assad’s chemical weapons infrastructure set the program back “years,” Haley said. The ambassador ruled out direct US talks with Assad over ending the conflict because of his “brutality” in targeting innocents throughout the course of the war.

Haley said the operation was not intended to overthrow the embattled dictator or “start a new war” in a country now seven years into a bloody conflict among forces loyal to Assad, opposition groups and terrorist organizations.

It was rather meant to send a message that “the president is watching,” Haley said. Assad, she continued, “now dictates his own life.”

Regional powers responded to the strike with a collective shrug, as even the Pentagon acknowledged the attack would not necessarily prevent Assad from continuing to deploy chemical arms.

Netanyahu, for his part, welcomed the strike, while adding that Iran’s march across Syria was of equal concern to Assad’s use of chemical weapons – and equally warranted military action.

Haley acknowledged regional concerns in her interviews and said, “We all know our work in Syria is not done.”

Friday’s precision strike volleyed more than 100 missiles at three targets that US officials said were critical to Assad’s chemical weapons program, including a research and development center, processing facilities and storage facilities.

“This was not muscle flexing,” Haley told CBS’s Margaret Brennan. “We set their chemical weapons program back years.”

Categories: Israel - America relations
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Israel destroys ‘longest and deepest’ Gaza tunnel

April 15, 2018

BBC News April 15, 2018

Source Link: Israel destroys ‘longest and deepest’ Gaza tunnel

{Imagine if all that work had been for something good. – LS}

The Israeli military has disabled a major tunnel dug by militants which reached into Israel from the Gaza Strip, officials say.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it was the longest and deepest tunnel of its kind Israel had discovered.

A military spokesman said it had been dug since the 2014 Gaza war, when Israel destroyed more than 30 tunnels which it said were meant for attacks.

Israel is using sophisticated measures to thwart tunnels dug by militants.

Military spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus said the tunnel had been dug by Hamas and began in the area of Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip. He said it penetrated several metres into Israel in the direction of Nahal Oz, but did not yet have an exit.

Map of Israel and Gaza

The tunnel stretched “several kilometres” into Gaza and connected with other tunnels from which attacks could be launched, he said.

Israel disabled the tunnel over the weekend, according to the military. “We filled the tunnel with material that renders it useless for a very long period of time,” Col Conricus said.

It was the fifth Gaza tunnel to be destroyed by the Israeli military in recent months, Col Conricus said.

Some of the tunnels have been built by Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad and others by Hamas, the Islamist group which controls Gaza.

Since last year, Israel has been using special equipment to detect the presence of tunnels, and is building a hi-tech barrier above and below ground along its border with Gaza to prevent new tunnels being dug.

 

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Netanyahu Expresses Israel’s ‘Full Support’ for US-Led Syrian Strike

April 15, 2018

By: United with Israel Staff April 15, 2018

Source Link: Netanyahu Expresses Israel’s ‘Full Support’ for US-Led Syrian Strike

{Mutual respect…something Obama knew nothing about. – LS}

President Trump’s resolve and Israel’s support remain unchanged,” Netanyahu said, referring to a US-led attack on sites connected to Syria’s chemical weapons program.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday expressed Israel’s “full support” for a US-led attack on sites connected to Syria’s chemical weapons program.

US, United Kingdom and French forces on Friday fired more than 100 missiles at Syrian military sites in response to President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons attack on Douma, near Damascus, a week ago which killed some 200 civilians.

“A year ago, I declared Israel’s full support for President Trump’s decision to take a stand against the use and spread of chemical weapons,” Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to a previous US strike against a Syrian air base with a barrage of cruise missiles in April 2017, following a sarin gas attack by the Assad regime on Khan Sheikhoun that killed about 100 people and affected about 200 others.

“President Trump’s resolve and Israel’s support remain unchanged,” Netanyahu underscored.

“Early [Saturday] morning, under American leadership, the United States, France and the United Kingdom demonstrated that their commitment is not limited to proclamations of principle,” Netanyahu praised the Western allies.

Netanyahu further stated that “it should be clear to President Assad that his reckless efforts to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction, his wanton disregard for international law and his provision of a forward base for Iran and its proxies endanger Syria.”

On Sunday Netanyahu told British Prime Minister Theresa May that “the important international message of the attack is zero tolerance for the use of non-conventional weapons.”

He added that this policy also needs to be expressed in preventing “terrorist states and groups” from acquiring nuclear abilities, meaning Iran. He reiterated that the “main element that is subverting the Middle East more than any other” is Iran, and that Assad must understand that when he allows Iran and its proxies to establish a military presence in Syria, he “is endangering both Syria and the stability of the entire region.

“A perfectly executed strike,” President Donald Trump tweeted Saturday in the aftermath of his second decision in just over a year to attack Syria. “Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!”

The strikes “successfully hit every target,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said at a briefing, referring to the following three targets: a chemical weapons research and development site in the Damascus area, a chemical weapons storage facility near Homs and a chemical weapons “bunker” a few miles from the second target.

The missile strikes on three chemical-weapons sites in Syria represent a relatively small-scale action, while US Defense Secretary James Mattis said it was a “one time shot.”
 

Categories: Netanyahu and Trump
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UN Security Council rejects Russian condemnation of US “aggression”

April 15, 2018

Apr 14, 2018 @ 20:50 Debka File

Source Link: UN Security Council rejects Russian condemnation of US ‘aggression’

{The UN stamp of approval. – LS}

The UN security voted Saturday to reject the Russian resolution condemning “aggression” against Syria by the US and its allies. The emergency council session was called by Russia after the US, British, French missile strike Syrian chemical sites following a suspected Syrian army poison agent attack on Douma last Saturday. Only Russia, China and Bolivia voted in favor of the draft resolution. Eight countries voted against the draft, while four abstained. President Trump tweeted earlier, “Mission accomplished!” after the strike and Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May agreed it had been a success.

 

Categories: Trump and United Nations
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Syria attack: ‘Huge blast’ at Iranian military base in Aleppo after ‘fighter jet attack’

April 15, 2018

By MARK CHANDLER
PUBLISHED: 22:10, Sat, Apr 14, 2018 | UPDATED: 22:29, Sat, Apr 14, 2018
Via Express

Source Link: Syria attack: ‘Huge blast’ at Iranian military base in Aleppo after ‘fighter jet attack’

{Shouldn’t there be proof first?….just kidding. – LS}

A HUGE blast was heard near an Iranian military base in Syria this evening, amid unconfirmed reports it was attacked by unidentified aircraft.

The base was in the Jabal Azzan region south of Aleppo, a Syrian government-controlled rural region.

People claimed to have seen explosions at the site and there are unconfirmed reports of casualties.

Syrian media reported it was attacked by Israeli aircraft this evening.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported the blast but said the cause was unknown.

Media linked to Hezbollah later claimed there had been no airstrike, blaming explosives detonating in a warehouse.

Last week, Russia blamed Israel for an attack on a Syrian airbase that killed at least 12 people.

Moscow claimed morning that two Israeli fighter jets had launched the attack on the T4 base.

The Russian Defence Ministry said the F-15 planes had carried out the strikes from Lebanese air space.

And it claimed Syrian air defence systems had shot down five of eight missiles fired.

The Israeli military made no comment on the claims.

It comes after forces from the US, UK and France launched a series of strikes against alleged chemical weapons facilities in the country overnight.

The western powers said on Saturday their missile attacks struck at the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons programme.

The United States, France and Britain launched 105 missiles overnight in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack in Syria a week ago, targeting what the Pentagon said were three chemical weapons facilities including a research and development in Damascus’ Barzeh district and two installations near Homs.

The bombing was the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and his superpower ally Russia, but the three countries said the strikes were limited to Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities and not aimed at toppling Assad or intervening in the civil war.

Categories: Iran and Assad
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Pentagon gives Syrian strike details and calls out Russian disinformation trolls

April 14, 2018

APRIL 14, 2018 EDITORIAL STAFF via American Military News

Source Link: Pentagon gives Syrian strike details and calls out Russian disinformation trolls

{Failed defenses. – LS}

On Saturday, Defense spokeswoman Dana White and Director of the Joint Staff Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr. held a press conference at the Pentagon that laid out the details of the Syrian missile strike by the U.S., U.K. and France on Friday night. The three nations who participated in the strike are three of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

The presser took place after the President tweeted “Mission Accomplished!” earlier Saturday morning.

While Syria tried to pre-empt the press conference by publicly claiming that Syrian air defenses shot down 71 of 103 missiles, McKenzie said: “No Syrian weapon had any effect on anything we did,” and that the U.S. “successfully hit every target.”

McKenzie also said: “None of our aircraft or missiles in this operation were successfully engaged,” and that the operation took out the heart of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons program and set back the program by years.

McKenzie noted that the operation was “precise, overwhelming and effective.”

McKenzie said that Syria did launch 40 unguided surface-to-air missiles (SAM) after the U.S.-led operation was over, and alluded to the possibility that Assad’s 40 SAMs could have hit his own people because the Syrian missiles “had to come down somewhere.”

It appears that Russia and Syria are trying to publish propaganda to try to minimize the public perception of the strike.

White called out Russia and said that its disinformation campaign has increased and that there had been a 2,000-percent increase in online Russian trolls in the last 24 hours.

Russian President Vladimir Putin put out a statement Saturday claiming the strike was an “act of aggression,” after the Russian Ambassador to U.S. warned of “consequences” for the strike.

The coalition fired 103 missiles over 70 minutes at 4 a.m. local Syrian time, which was Friday night on the East Coast of the United States.

This was a larger operation than the 59 missiles launched last April, in an attack on Syria last year.

Two B-1 bombers fired 19 of the missiles.

White called on Russia to demand Assad dismantle his chemical weapons program.

White started the press conference by saying the use of chemical weapons is an inexcusable violation of international law and the U.S. will not tolerate it.

The three targets were the Barzah Research and Development Center, Him Shinsar Chemical Weapons Facility and the Him Shinsar Chemical Weapons Bunker Facility, and McKenzie showed before and after photos of each target.

White said that Assad’s use of chemical weapons on his own people demanded an immediate response, and the precision strikes against the Assad regime targeted sites associated with the chemical weapons program. The purpose was to prevent the future use of chemical weapons in the future.

White said the strike was a justified, legitimate and proportionate response to Assad’s use of Syria’s chemical weapons and stated several times that “out goal in Syria continues to be to defeat ISIS,” but that the U.S. cannot ignore the threat that Assad’s actions present.

She also stated that Assad’s actions in April 2017 by gassing his own people and on April 7, 2018, gassing his own people again, show Assad has abandoned Sryia’s commitment to the international agreements that Assad committed to.

Officials noted that they are still collecting information and more details will be provided as assessments are completed.

Categories: Assad
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AMB. Haley: If Poisonous Gas Is Used Again, The U.S. Is Locked And Loaded

April 14, 2018
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 9:20 AM PT – Sat. April 14, 2018

The UN Security Council holds an emergency meeting after the Syria air strikes.

{I suspect next time won’t be so pretty. – LS}

Ambassador Nikki Haley told the council Saturday the overall U.S. Syrian strategy has not changed, but the Assad government forced the U.S. to take action.

Haley also thanked the UK and France for their assistance, saying the U.S. worked lock-step with both nations.

The ambassador confirmed the air strikes successfully hit the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons program, and warned if the Assad government uses the poisonous gas again, the U.S. is “locked and loaded.”

“I spoke to the President this morning, and he said if the Syrian regime uses this poisonous gas again, the United States is locked and loaded. When our President draws a red line, our President enforces the red line.” – Nikki Haley, U.N. ambassador

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