The Trump administration hit a Syrian airbase with over 50 cruise missiles Thursday, according to multiple reports. The strike came days after the Bashar al-Assad regime waged a horrific chemical attack against its own people Tuesday that left at least 80 dead.
“I ordered a targeted military strike on airfield in Syria from which the chemical attack was launched,” President Trump said in a statement to reporters Thursday night. “It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.”
The strike, launched from ships in the Mediterranean Sea, reportedly targeted al-Shayrat airfield—the same location that the administration believes the Assad regime used to carry out its chemical attacks. The strike marks an escalation in the years long Syrian civil war, as well as an abrupt shift in the Trump administration’s Syria policy.
The president had previously cautioned against military action in Syria and urged then-President Obama to obtain congressional approval for any such moves. Trump appeared shaken by the chemical attack Wednesday and told reporters that his attitude toward Assad had changed.
“The attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me—big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing,” Trump said. “It is very, very possible—and I will tell you it’s already happened—that my attitude towards Syria and Assad has changed very much.”
The White House last week said that Assad’s rule remained a “political reality.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said around the same time that Assad’s fate would be “determined by the Syrian people.”
Tillerson said Thursday that the United States is organizing an international effort to remove Assad via a political process.
“Those steps are under way,” he said. “Assad’s role in the future is uncertain clearly and with the acts that he has taken, it will seem that there would be no role for him to govern the Syrian people.”
He advised Russia to rethink its support for the regime.
Read Trump’s full statement after the strike below:
