The United States launched the response, along with assistance from France and the United Kingdom, Trump stated from the White House about 9 p.m. EDT.<\/p>\n
“A short time ago, I ordered the United States armed forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad,” Trump said from the White House. “A combined operation with the armed forces of France and the United Kingdom is now under way. We thank them both.”<\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron said the operation was targeting the “clandestine chemical arsenal” in Syria. <\/p>\n
British Prime Minister Theresa May also issued a statement. “This evening I have authorized British armed forces to conduct coordinated and targeted strikes to degrade the Syrian Regime\u2019s chemical weapons capability and deter their use,” May said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Trump’s announcement was closely preceded by reports of explosions in Damascus, the Syrian capital. There have been multiple strikes against at least two sites, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, said.<\/p>\n
“Important infrastructure was destroyed,” Dunford said, noting that sites associated with the Syrian chemical weapons program were both “targeted and destroyed.”<\/p>\n
Trump said the U.S. is prepared to “sustain” pressure on Assad until he ends what the president called a criminal pattern of killing his own people with internationally banned chemical weapons. <\/p>\n
But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis labeled the strikes “right now” as being “a one-time shot,” adding that no additional attacks are currently planned.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
President Trump made it very clear this is not an escalation, but a harsh warning that the use of WMDs will never be accepted, and shamed the Russians and Iranians for being party their use. The talking heads will natter on, but the fact is Assad used chemical warfare against civilians again, and this time with US troops in the AO. That can not and will not be tolerated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fox News reports President Donald Trump on Friday night announced that he authorized military strikes against … Trump announces US military strikes in Syria<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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