Strike on Syrian airbase puts U.S. beyond anti-terror agreements - senator

By delivering one airstrike on the airbase in Syria the U.S. puts itself beyond international antiterrorist agreements, committing two dangerous acts, head of the international committee of the Russian Federation Council (parliament’s upper house) Konstantin Kosachev said on April 8.

"First of all, the aggression against a sovereign country, as Russia’s top leaders have called it," he said.

"And, secondly, the evident support for terrorists, who, inspired by this unexpected (?) assistance from Washington are already reporting an offensive at certain directions," the senator wrote on Facebook [in Russian], adding actions of the kind already become a "corporate style" of the new U.S. leadership, trying to settle domestic problems by "cowboy swoops" in foreign affairs.

The Russian air force would not get involved in military actions against the U.S. and those who support it, in case there is no direct threat to the Russian military in Syria, he said.

After the U.S. attack on Syria: 3 possible scenarios

Following an order from the U.S. President Donald Trump, the U.S. armed forces fired a total of 59 Tomahawk subsonic cruise missiles on a military airfield in Syria’s Homs Governorate. The strike came as a response to the chemical attack in Idlib on April 4 and targeted what Washington claims was a starting location for the attack.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the airstrike left four Syrian servicemen dead, two missing and four injured. Syria’s governmental SANA news agency said six people died, but later reported the deaths of nine civilians. On that day, the ministry said, the Syrian air force bombarded shops, where the militants produced ammunition with poisonous substances, what were supplied to Iraq and used in Aleppo.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow views the incident as aggression against a sovereign state, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described it as an act of aggression under a far-fetched pretext.

Source: TASS