THE United States Navy fired 59 cruise missiles on Friday at a Syrian airbase from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched this week on unarmed civilians killing dozens of people and rendering many seriously sick. It is the first direct US assault on the government of Bashar al-Assad in six years of civil war. That catapulted the United States into a confrontation with Russia, which has military advisers and air defense system in the ground assisting its close ally Assad.” Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically,” Trump said as he announced the attack from his Florida resort meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The swift action is likely to be interpreted as a signal to Russia, and also to other countries such as North Korea, China and Iran where Trump has faced foreign policy tests early in his presidency. The Syrian army said the US attack killed six people at its air base near the city of Homs. It called the attack “blatant aggression” and said it made the United States a “partner” of “terrorist groups” including the Islamic State. Homs Governor Talal Barazi told Reuters the death toll was seven.
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the strike had seriously damaged ties between Washington and Moscow. Putin, a staunch ally of Assad, regarded the US action as “aggression against a sovereign nation” on a “made-up pretext”, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Russian television showed craters and rubble at the site of the airbase and said nine aircrafts had been destroyed.
We appreciate this action of US President Donald Trump that his predecessor Barack Obama never took: directly targetting Assad’s air defence area. But if Trump stops here and does not further target Assad then nothing will change. The message should be that Assad could not be tolerated anymore and he must go.
If the ISIS has to be ended then the Syria’s President Assad has to be ended first. It is wrong for the West to think that Assad is fighting ISIS. He is the cause of ISIS and ending Assad will be a decisive action against the so-called Islamists in the Middle East.
Therefore these US military actions must continue making Assad the main target. President Assad who is a mindless killer of children must not be allowed time, he must leave Syria or die. He is the major source of Muslims’ anger all over the world. ISIS is taking advantage of the crisis in Syria. It is deceptive to fight ISIS and save Assad.
We hope that the US will continue to press on with more military actions in Syria making openly for the knowledge of all that President Assad, a relentless killer, is the target of the attack. To Russia, killing is politics. It is hopeful to see the Western powers have supported the air attack launched by President Trump. But the job must be finished to save Syrian people and diminish ISIS.