A warplane on Friday bombed the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, where a chemical attack killed scores of people this week and prompted U.S. missile strikes, a witness in the rebel-held area and a war monitoring group said.

11.09am BST

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that monitors the war, said a Syrian government or Russian warplane hit Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib province before noon.

The Syrian army and the Russian defence ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

The witness, an activist working with an air raid warning service in opposition areas, said the jet struck at around 11 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) at the northern edge of the town, causing damage but no known casualties.

The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles on Friday at an airfield from which it said the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack was launched that killed at least 70 people on Tuesday.

Washington blamed the gas attack on Syrian government forces. The Syrian government strongly denies responsibility and says it does not use chemical weapons.

The Observatory and the witness said earlier this week that the aircraft which they accused of carrying out the suspected gas attack had flown out of the Shayrat air base, the one attacked by U.S. missiles on Friday.

The Syrian army said the missile attack on its airbase killed six people and caused extensive damage, describing it as a “blatant agression”.



Syrian state news agency claims US attack killed nine civilians including four children

11.06am BST

Reuters is reporting that the Syrian state news agency has said that US airstrikes killed nine civilians, including four children, in areas near the targeted airbase.

10.48am BST

Air strikes reported in chemical-attack town

Air strikes may have struck the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on Friday, where a chemical attack killed scores of people this week, according to a witness in the rebel-held area and a war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights (SOHR).

10.39am BST

Russia 24 TV has shown images of damage at the Shayrat airbase targeted by the US airstrike. Here are some screengrabs shown on BBC News:





At least seven dead in airstrike - Syrian official

9.47am BST

A Syrian official has told the Associated Press that at least seven were killed and nine were wounded in US missile attack on air base.

What we know so far

9.33am BST

The US has launched a missile strike against Syria, targeting al-Shayrat airbase close to Homs, from where it said this week’s sarin nerve gas attack on Khan Sheikhun was launched.

59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from warships USS Ross and Porter in the eastern Mediterranean in the early hours of Friday morning.

Reports from Homs province said the airbase was destroyed, and six people killed. Some reports said senior officers had evacuated the base before the airstrikes happened.

Donald Trump said the strike was a direct response to the chemical weapons attack that killed more than 70 people:

It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.

There was an angry response in Russia, where the Kremlin warned that the strikes were a “significant blow to Russian-American relations, which were already in a sorry state”. Moscow called for a meeting of the UN security council to discuss the strikes.

Tillerson said Russia bore responsibility for its handling of the 2013 deal that was supposed to remove Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile:

Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end of that agreement.

Tillerson said there had been “no discussions” with Moscow before the strike. But the Pentagon confirmed that Russia – a key Assad ally – had been informed in advance of the strike through military channels:
Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line.

Sources told the Guardian that US intelligence officials believe Russian personnel were at al-Shayrat airbase when sarin was loaded on to a Syrian jet. They have not established whether the Russians knew it was happening.

The UK, Australia, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand and Japan offered strong backing for the US strikes, while Iran condemned the move. France and Germany confirmed they had been informed in advance of the attack, though China warned it opposed the use of force.

Russian personnel at airbase before gas attack

9.02am BST

Sources have told the Guardian that US intelligence officials believe Russian personnel were at al-Shayrat airbase when sarin was loaded on to a Syrian jet. They have not established whether the Russians knew it was happening.

The base covers an area of more than eight square kilometres and has two runways and dozens of buildings, silos and storage facilities.

Syrian opposition figures claim to have identified the pilot allegedly responsible for bombing Khan Sheikhun around 6.30am on 4 April. Five hours later, close to 11.30am, a hospital treating victims from the attack was hit by a conventional bomb, dropped from a jet.

The sources say that on both occasions, a Russian Sukhoi was monitored by ground radar and aerial reconnaissance flying over the town. Flashes were picked up on the ground, indicating that ordnance had been dropped.

The air space over northern Syria is monitored heavily by Turkey, the US and Russia, and all three have precise knowledge of whose jets are in the air and where they fly.

Russia calls for UN security council meeting on strikes

8.49am BST

Russia (which, along with China, has vetoed previous UN resolutions against Assad) has called for a meeting of the UN security council to discuss the US strikes.

Russia also says it is suspending its agreement to communicate with the US over the use of Syrian airspace – possibly a reference to the so-called “deconfliction line”, via which the US military gave Russia warning on Thursday of the missile strikes.


Six dead in strike: Syrian army

8.15am BST

Reuters reports a statement from the Syrian army, which says the missile strikes killed six people and caused “big material losses”.



The army accuses the US of “blatant aggression” against the airbase, and says its response will be to continue to “crush terrorism” and restore “peace and security to all Syria”.

What we know so far

07.13am BST

The US has launched a missile strike against Syria, targeting al-Shayrat airbase close to Homs, from where it said this week’s sarin nerve gas attack on Khan Sheikhun was launched.

The Pentagon said 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from warships USS Ross and Porter in the eastern Mediterranean in the early hours of Friday morning, Syria time.

Unconfirmed reports from Homs province said the airbase was destroyed, and some personnel killed. Some reports said senior officers had evacuated the base before the airstrikes happened.

Donald Trump said the strike was a direct response to the chemical weapons attack that killed more than 70 people:

Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched.

It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.

There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention, and ignored the urging of the UN security council.

Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically.



Kremlin response: 'significant damage to US-Russia ties'

07.00am BST

In its first public response to the airstrikes, the Kremlin has issued a strong statement condemning the US move as “aggression against a sovereign nation”.

Moscow said the strikes had been carried out on an “invented pretext” and claimed the Syrian army did not have chemical weapons.

The strikes, it said, would do “significant damage to US-Russia ties” and created a “serious obstacle” to creating an international coalition to defeat Isis.



Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said, views the strikes as an attempt to deflect world attention from civilian deaths in Iraq – where at least 150 people died in a series of coalition airstrikes in Mosul last month.

Tillerson: 'no change' in US policy on Syria

04.00am BST

Secretary of state Rex Tillerson has insisted that the missile strikes – despite the sharp shift they represent from the previous stance taken by the Trump administration – are not in fact a change in US policy towards Syria:

This clearly indicates the president is willing to take decisive action when called for.

I would not in any way attempt to extrapolate that to a change in our policy or posture relative to our military activities in Syria today. There has been no change in that status.

I think it does demonstrate that President Trump is willing to act when governments and actors cross the line and cross the line on violating commitments they’ve made and cross the line in the most heinous of ways.


/The Guardian/

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