[Discussion] Syrian Conflict General Discussion

There's a strategist on twitter saying that neither Russia nor Syria even tried to shoot down any of those missiles despite having the capability to do so (though tomahawks are supposed to be difficult to hit).

I can't verify that, of course, but if that's true, that confirms that this entire enterprise was a PR move for all parties involved.

This is basically what Trump has been saying his policy would be. He's not going to give notice, he's not going to ask for permission. He has specifically said that his foreign military strategy is to be "unpredictable" and "keep you [the media, in context] in suspense".

oilypenguin wrote:

This is also fine.

Jets attacking from base we bombed last night.

Well that seems pretty incompetent. Did we specifically strike the boonies around the air force base just so it would look like we did something.

Syrian warplanes took off from the air base hit by US cruise missiles yesterday to carry out bombing raids on rebel-held areas, in a defiant show of strength.

Just hours after the al-Shayrat airfield was bombed with 59 US Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from warships in the Mediterranean, aircraft struck targets in the eastern Homs countryside, according to a monitoring group.

The airstrikes were carried out on Khan Sheikhoun - the same town Bashar al-Assad’s regime is accused of attacking with chemicals - and seven other towns around eastern Homs, some of which controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

Col. Hassan Hamade, a Syrian pilot who defected in June 2012 when he landed his MiG-21 in Jordan, agreed.

"The bombardment of Shayrat will not have a major effect on military operations of the regime," said Mr Hamade, speaking to The Associated Press. He said if only the tarmac was destroyed it can be fixed within hours, but if the communications system and the control tower were heavily damaged it will take weeks if not months.

Syrian government officials said the base has played an instrumental role in the fight against the Islamic State group, which until recently controlled the historic town of Palmyra in Homs province.

"This very airport that was attacked by the United States has been fighting against terrorists for the last six years," Buthaina Shaaban, an adviser to Mr Assad, said.

Defense officials told CBS News on Friday that 58 of the 59 missiles launched from two U.S. warships on Thursday hit the Shayrat airbase as intended. It was unclear to U.S. officials where the 59th missile had landed after it suffered an apparent GPS failure, CBS News correspondent David Martin reported.

Russia and Syria attempted to downplay the efficacy of the U.S. strike on Friday, suggesting little meaningful damage was done and claiming Syria had time to remove some of its military hardware from the site before the missiles -- carrying a combined payload of about 59,000 pounds of explosives -- touched down at about 3:45 a.m. local time.

U.S. defense officials speaking to CBS News’ Martin on Friday were unambiguous; Syria did not have time to get any of its planes away from Shayrat before the strike.

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Twitter that the runway itself had not been the target of the missile strikes.

"The reason you don't generally hit runways is that they are easy and inexpensive to quickly fix (fill in and top)!", he said.

A senior military source in the alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad said the airbase had been mostly evacuated thanks to a warning from Russia, which has deployed its military to Syria in support of Assad.

The senior military source, a non-Syrian, said only a few out-of-service jets were destroyed.

The United States warned Russia ahead of the attack.

Assad is also backed in the war by Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, and other Iranian-backed groups.

The Pentagon said the missiles targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage areas, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars.

Britain said on Sunday Russia bore responsibility by proxy for civilian deaths in Syria last week caused by a poison gas attack that Washington says was carried out by the Moscow-backed government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

At least 70 people died in what the United States says was a chemical weapons attack in rebel-held Syria. The attack prompted the United States to fire 59 cruise missiles into a Syrian air base from which it said the attack was launched.

Damascus and Moscow denied Syrian forces were behind the gas attack but Western countries dismissed their explanation that chemicals leaked from a rebel weapons depot after an air strike.

WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered the military on Thursday to carry out a missile attack on Syrian forces for using chemical weapons against civilians. The unilateral attack lacked authorization from Congress or from the United Nations Security Council, raising the question of whether he had legal authority to commit the act of war.

Mr. Trump and top members of his administration initially justified the operation as a punishment for Syria’s violating the ban on chemical weapons and an attempt at deterrence. But they did not make clear whether that was a legal argument or just a policy rationale.

The strike raises two sets of legal issues. One involves international law and when it is lawful for any nation to attack another. The other involves domestic law and who gets to decide — the president or Congress — whether the United States should attack another country.