Following several missile strikes on Syrian chemical weapons facilities Friday night, President Donald Trump declared “mission accomplished” as the Pentagon confirmed that every missile hit its intended target, The Hill reported.

Although Syrian state TV claimed that 13 U.S. Tomahawk missiles were shot down during the strike, Defense Department chief spokeswoman Dana White indicated otherwise.

“Last night’s operations were successful. We met all of our objectives, we hit all of our targets successfully,” White told reporters at the Pentagon. “No allied aircrafts were engaged. It was a successful mission.”

French and British forces joined the United States to launch over 100 missiles at various targets in the Syrian capital of Damascus and in the northern city of Homs, in retaliation for a chemical attack last weekend that that killed over 40 Syrians.

White said that the missile strikes severely hurt Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s ability to continue producing chemical weapons.

“The strikes went to the very heart of the enterprise, to research to the development, to storage. So we are very confident that we have significantly crippled Assad’s ability to produce these weapons,” she said.

During a late-night Pentagon briefing, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that “a little over double” the number of weapons were used to strike Syria than what were used to strike Syria in April of last year.

“Clearly, the Syrian regime did not get the message last year,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon.

“This time our allies and we have struck harder. Together we have sent a clear message to Assad and his murderous lieutenants that they should not perpetrate another chemical weapons attack for which they will be held accountable.”

Director of the Joint Staff Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. called the attacks “precise, overwhelming and effective” in their goal to prevent further chemical weapons attacks.

“All weapons hit their targets at very close to the designated time on target of about 4 a.m. in Syria,” McKenzie said. “These attacks on multiple axis were able to overwhelm the Syrian air defense system.”

“This is going to set the Syrian chemical weapons program back for years.”

RELATED: Israeli PM Netanyahu Speaks Out on US Missile Strikes in Syria

“A pre-designed scenario is being implemented,” Antonov said on Twitter, according to Al Jazeera. “Again, we are being threatened. We warned that such actions will not be left without consequences.”

Defense Spokesman White reiterated Friday that in spite of the missile strikes, the United State’s objective in Syria continues to be defeating ISIS.

“Our focus remains defeating ISIS,” she said. “It is not to get involved in the Syrian civil war.”

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</s>Last week, President Trump promised to withdraw from Syria. This week, he opened a new front against Syrian leader Bashar Assad that risks drawing the U.S. into a broader conflict there.

By attacking Assad late Friday, the Trump administration sought to warn the Syrian leader against continuing to use illegal chemical warfare agents, following the gassing of civilians near Damascus last weekend.

The administration calculated that the need to send a signal to Assad over chemical weapons outweighed the possibility of provoking a response from his allies, Russia or Iran, on the battlefield in Syria, elsewhere in the Middle East or even in cyberspace.

The risk, analysts say, is that the U.S. would then end up in a cycle of escalation that entangles the American military more deeply in the Syrian conflict than the administration intended.

“Given the linkage between Russia, Iran and Assad, an attack that we would consider limited and precise might be misconstrued by one or more of those three parties and justify from their perspective a retaliatory strike,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War. “Then what do we do?”

Possible scenarios for a retaliation include attacks by Iranian-backed militias against U.S. forces in the Middle East, stepped-up incidents against U.S. forces and their allies within Syria, or “asymmetric responses” such as cyberattacks entirely outside the theater itself.

It remains unclear whether the strike will prevent Assad’s forces from turning to chemical weapons in the future as the leader seeks to extend his reach across the country while consolidating gains in the civil war.

Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria and fellow at the Middle East Institute and Yale University, said military action would deter Assad’s forces from using chemical weapons only if the U.S. conducts follow-up strikes when new atrocities occur.

“I don’t think, in order to make the deterrent stick, that this can be the last attack,” Ford said. The former U.S. diplomat, who said Assad’s forces were using chemical weapons in part because they lack manpower, predicted the Syrian leader “will test us – and we will have to do this again.”

Trump promised that the strikes wouldn’t necessarily be a one-off. “We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” the president said in an address at the White House Friday night.

Some who support the strikes say that even if they fail to prevent Assad from using chemical weapons in the future, they will send the message that the international community is watching and intends to enforce the ban on chemical weapons that countries instituted after World War I.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said the strikes, which the U.K. and France participated in, would “send a clear signal to anyone else who believes they can use chemical weapons with impunity.” Referring to the recent nerve-agent attack on a former Russian spy living in Salisbury, England, she said, “We cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalized – within Syria, on the streets of the UK or anywhere else in our world.”

But the military intervention also comes as Washington has all but given up on seeking the removal of Assad more than seven years into Syria’s civil war. Trump wants the Pentagon to withdraw U.S. troops after the Kurdish-led militia Washington is backing in Syria finishes off the remnants of the Islamic State terror group.

The departure of U.S. troops, military strategists say, will likely pave the way for Assad’s consolidation of control in the country, backed by Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

The result is what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis described in congressional testimony on Thursday as “contrary impulses.” On the one hand, Trump wants the U.S. to have nothing to do with Syria. On the other, he wants to dictate norms of behavior on Syria’s battlefield that upset him when violated.

Those who take a dim view of selective strikes in response to chemical weapons usage say the U.S. has given up trying to ensure the departure of Assad, which means his forces will continue to kill whomever they wish as they consolidate control, even if they do so with conventional weapons.

“As long as you have a strategy that leaves Assad in place and allows him to slaughter his people as he sees fit, he is going to do so,” said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “And he is probably going to use chemical warfare agents.”

But for Washington to stop Assad from killing his own citizens more broadly, “we’re getting closer to a regime-change scenario because he’s bombing almost every day,” said Ford, the former U.S. ambassador. “To me, that’s drawing us in. I have zero confidence that we could control where that goes then.”

Pollack suspects that the Syrian regime and Iran won’t retaliate against the U.S. because they are ascendant on a battlefield that Trump has promised to leave, and they won’t want to engage in any action that could prevent a U.S. departure that would amount to a big win for them.

Russia could have more of a motive to retaliate, Pollack said, even though before last year’s attack on Assad’s airfield, U.S. forces warned Russia in advance.

“Russia is the wild card out there,” Pollack said, because President Vladimir Putin’s interests are bigger than Syria. “They are about how much [the U.S. is] allowed to act unrestrained and how much does he want to demonstrate that he can fight back.”

The strike also raises thorny questions for Trump administration officials about why they are willing to intervene when Assad uses chemical weapons against civilians but won’t act in instances where his forces are killing far more with conventional weapons.

Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Mattis suggested chemical weapons differed from conventional arms in their barbarism.

“Some things are simply inexcusable, beyond the pale, and in the worst interest of not just the Chemical Weapons Convention, but of civilization itself,” Mattis said, explaining why the Trump administration decided to strike last year.

For some political scientists, that logic represents a slippery slope, where the U.S. is compelled into military action on humanitarian grounds only depending on the type of killing that is occurring.

“How horrific is it that we are particularly disturbed by one way of killing Syrian children but not the other?” asked Mara Karlin, a former top Pentagon official during the Obama administration and an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

The allure of such strikes, Pollack said, is that they are “feel-good military operations,” which make the American public think they have done something to help Syrians.

“No, we didn’t,” Pollack said. “Five hundred thousand of them have died, and we’ve done nothing.”</s>A car with loudspeakers blaring the national song "Oh Syria, You Are My Love" could be heard driving through central Damascus amid the attack.

Syrian television said the attacks targeted a scientific research centre in Barzeh, near Damascus, and an army depot near Homs.

Syrian media reported that air defences had hit 13 incoming rockets south of Damascus.

Syrian state TV called the attacks a "blatant violation of international law and shows contempt for international legitimacy."

U.S. Defence Secretary James Mattis said there were no reports of U.S. losses during the initial airstrikes.

"Right now this is a one-time shot," he said but did not rule out further attacks. He said the airstrikes were launched against several sites that helped provide Assad's ability to create chemical weapons.

Britain's defence ministry said that while the effectiveness of the strike is still being analyzed, "initial indications are that the precision of the Storm Shadow weapons and meticulous target planning have resulted in a successful attack."

British Prime Minister Theresa May describes the attack as neither "about intervening in a civil war" nor "about regime change" but a limited and targeted strike that "does not further escalate tensions in the region" and does everything possible to prevent civilian casualties.

"We would have preferred an alternative path. But on this occasion there is none," May said.

The decision to strike, after days of deliberations, marked Trump's second order to attack Syria; he authorized a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit a single Syrian airfield in April 2017 in retaliation for Assad's use of sarin gas against civilians.

Trump chastised Syria's two main allies, Russia and Iran, for their roles in supporting "murderous dictators," and noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin had guaranteed a 2013 international agreement for Assad to get rid of all of his chemical weapons. He called on Moscow to change course and join the West in seeking a more responsible regime in Damascus.

Russia's U.S. embassy released a statement warning that the airstrikes will "not be left without consequences." It said that "all responsibility" rests with Washington, London and Paris.

The allied operation comes a year after a U.S. missile strike that Trump said was meant to deter Assad from further use of chemical weapons. Since that did not work, a more intense attack would aim to degrade his ability to carry out further such attacks, and would try to do this by hitting Syrian aircraft, military depots and chemical facilities, among other things.

The one-off missile strike in April 2017 targeted the airfield from which the Syrian aircraft had launched their gas attack. But the damage was limited, and a defiant Assad returned to episodic use of chlorine and perhaps other chemicals.

Friday's strikes appear to signal Trump's willingness to draw the United States more deeply into the Syrian conflict. The participation of British and French forces enables Trump to assert a wider international commitment against the use of chemical weapons, but the multi-pronged attack carries the risk of Russian retaliation.

In his nationwide address, Trump stressed that he has no interest in a longtime fight with Syria.

"America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria under no circumstances," he said. "As other nations step up their contributions, we look forward to the day when we can bring our warriors home."

The U.S. has about 2,000 troops on the ground in Syria as advisers to a makeshift group of anti-Islamic State fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. They are in eastern Syria, far from Damascus. A U.S.-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes in Syria since September 2014 as part of a largely successful effort to break the IS grip on both Syria and Iraq.

Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb and Zeina Karam in Beirut and Albert Aji in Damascus contributed reporting.

By Bassem Mroue, The Associated Press</s>German Chancellor Merkel says allied strikes in Syria were 'necessary and appropriate' response to chemical attack

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Merkel says allied strikes in Syria were 'necessary and appropriate' response to chemical attack.</s>The UN Security Council rejected a Russian resolution calling for condemnation of the "aggression" by the United States and its allies against Syria on Saturday.

The vote reflected support for the airstrikes on Syrian chemical sites but it also demonstrated again the paralysis of the UN's most powerful body in dealing with the Syria conflict.

Russia's demand for condemnation and an immediate halt to "aggression" and "any further use of force" by the U.S., Britain and France got support from only two other countries on the 15-member council -- China and Bolivia.

By contrast, eight countries voted against the Russian draft -- the U.S., Britain, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Kuwait, Poland and Ivory Coast. Four countries abstained -- Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Equatorial Guinea and Peru.

The vote came at the end of an emergency meeting of the council called by Moscow, which saw Russia and its supporters clashing with the U.S. and its allies over a suspected poison gas attack last weekend in the Damascus suburb of Douma.

The U.S., Britain and France said they launched airstrikes against Syrian chemical sites after obtaining evidence that poisonous gas was used last weekend on the Damascus suburb of Douma by President Bashar Assad's government. Russia and its close ally Syria called the attack fabricated and said no evidence of chemical weapons use in Douma exists.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the council "there is clear information demonstrating Assad's culpability." She said President Donald Trump told her Saturday morning that if the Syrian regime uses poisonous gas again "the United States is locked and loaded" to strike again.

Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said after the vote the meeting confirmed that the U.S. and its allies "continue to put international politics and diplomacy in the realm of myth-making -- myths invented in London, Paris and Washington." He accused the allies of violating the UN Charter and international law.</s>The United States, Britain and France opted to strike Syria for its apparent use of chemical weapons without waiting for a report from U.N. inspectors because they were convinced that the Assad government had used chlorine and sarin nerve gas against a rebel-held Damascus suburb, American officials said Saturday.

The allies also acted because of concerns that Russian and Syrian forces may already have tried to clean up important evidence in Douma, where more than 40 people died in last weekend's attack, the officials said.

The three countries launched their missiles even as the fact-finding team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was in the Syrian capital and had been expected to head on Saturday to Douma.

Russia and Syria have denied that chemical weapons were used at all and said their own investigators had been to the area and found no trace of them. Those assertions have been denounced as lies by Western officials.

The West's assessments of what happened April 7 in Douma rely mainly on open source information. That includes witness testimony, as well as video and photos shot by aid workers, victims of the attacks and unspecified additional intelligence about barrel bombs and chlorine canisters found in the aftermath.

Barrel bombs are large containers packed with fuel, explosives and scraps of metal, and British Prime Minister Theresa May said reports indicated the Syrian government had used one to deliver the chemicals.

The White House said doctors and aid organizations on the ground in Douma reported "the strong smell of chlorine and described symptoms consistent with exposure to sarin." A senior administration official told reporters Saturday that while there was more publicly available evidence pointing to the use of chlorine, the U.S. has "significant information that also points to sarin use."

The official did not elaborate on what that information entailed.

Chlorine use has been a recurring footnote in the course of Syria's civil war, but rarely has it generated the same outrage as reports of sarin use.

Chlorine has legitimate industrial and other civilian uses, so it is not banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention. The treaty does, however, prohibit the use of chlorine as a weapon.

One senior U.S. official familiar with the decision to act on Friday said the U.S., British and French intelligence services were unanimous in their assessments of the attack and were "eager" to move when they did because of concerns about contamination of the site.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss specifics beyond those contained in the formal statements.

Despite the strikes, the chemical weapons watchdog agency said its experts would go ahead with their mission. The Russian foreign ministry, however, accused the allies of acting when they did "to hamper the work of the OPCW inspectors."

The U.S. has denied that assertion and called the group's mission "essential" to a complete understanding of what chemical agents were used.

A second U.S. official said Britain, France and the U.S. are confident that the inspectors' eventual report will confirm their findings that chlorine was used, likely in conjunction with sarin.

The three governments noted dozens previous, smaller-scale chlorine and other chemical weapons attacks over the course of the past year, since President Donald Trump first ordered airstrikes against Syria last April.

Reports of major chlorine attacks began emerging in 2014, soon after Syria's declaration of complete chemical disarmament, which was the result of an Obama administration agreement between the U.S. and Russia. The agreement only covered declared chemical weapons. Syria is widely suspected of hiding some stocks, manufacturing more as well as holding on to chlorine.

"The pictures of dead children were not fake news. They were the result of the Syrian regime's barbaric inhumanity," Trump's U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, said Saturday. "And they were the result of the regime and Russia's failure to live up to their international commitments to remove all chemical weapons from Syria. The United States, France, and the United Kingdom acted after careful evaluation of these facts. "

In August 2015, the U.N. Security Council first authorized the OPCW and U.N. investigators to probe reports of chemical weapons use in Syria, as witnesses began to circulate increasing accounts of chlorine attacks by government forces against civilians in opposition-held areas.

A year later, the joint OPCW-U.N. panel determined the Syrian government had twice used helicopters to deploy chlorine against its opponents in civilian areas in northern Idlib province. A later report held the government responsible for a third attack.

There have been dozens of attacks with chlorine gas since then, including an attack in Aleppo in 2016 that reportedly killed a woman and two children, and at least two attacks on the town of Saraqeb in northern Syria that injured dozens.</s>Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday slammed the US and its allies for carrying out a military strike on Syria, saying that Washington was “increasingly exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria” as he called for an immediate UN Security Council meeting to discuss the “aggressive action”.

“Russia strongly condemns the attack on Syria where Russian servicemen are helping the legitimate government in the war on terrorism,” the Kremlin press office quoted Putin as saying.

“By its actions, the US is increasingly exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria and actually conniving at terrorists who have been tormenting the Syrian people for seven years and provoking a new wave of refugees from that country and the region as a whole,” he said.

Putin said the US used a “staged chemical attack” against civilians to carry out the Friday night strike, TASS news agency reported.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “the action against Syria came precisely at the moment when the country received a chance for a peaceful future”.

The coordinated airstrikes in Syria were conducted by the US, France and the UK as American President Donald Trump sought to “punish” his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad for an apparent chemical attack in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, last week that killed over 70 people.

The latest strikes targeted three facilities associated with Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, including a scientific research facility around Damascus, a chemical weapons storage facility around Homs alleged to be used for sarin gas and a nearby command post, according to the Pentagon.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry called the joint airstrikes a “flagrant violation of international law and the principals of the UN charter”, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.

“Syria calls on the international community to strongly condemn this aggression, which will lead to nothing but the igniting of tensions around the world and pose a threat to international peace and security as a whole,” the ministry said.

British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed their countries’ involvement in the action with the former saying there was “no practicable alternative to the use of force”.

But May also said the strikes were not about “regime change”. In a further press briefing on Saturday, she said that while the assessment of the strike’s results was still ongoing, May was confident of its success.

Macron, talking about the Douma chemical attack, said: “Dozens of men, women and children were massacred with chemical weapons. The red line had been crossed.”

“We cannot tolerate the normalisation of the employment of chemical weapons, which is an immediate danger to the Syrian people and to our collective security.

“France and its partners will today resume their efforts at the UN to enable the creation of an international mechanism to establish responsibility, prevent impunity and obstruct any temptation on the part of the Syrian regime to repeat these acts.”

Nato Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg tweeted in support for the strikes, saying those who use chemical weapons “must be held accountable”.

Trump indicated the strikes would continue until the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons ends.

“We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” he added.</s>Loud explosions rocked Syria's capital and filled the sky with heavy smoke early Saturday after U.S. President Donald Trump announced airstrikes in retaliation for the country's alleged use of chemical weapons. Syrian air defenses responded to the joint strikes by the United States, France and Britain.Associated Press reporters saw smoke rising from east Damascus and the lit-up sky turning orange for the blasts. A huge fire could be seen from a distance to the east. Syrian television said the attacks targeted a scientific research center in Barzeh, near Damascus, and an army depot near Homs.Syrian media reported that air defenses had hit 13 incoming rockets south of Damascus.After the attack ceased and the early morning skies went dark once more, vehicles with loudspeakers roamed the streets of Damascus blaring nationalist songs."Good souls will not be humiliated," Syria's presidency tweeted after airstrikes began.Syrian state TV called the attacks a "blatant violation of international law and shows contempt for international legitimacy."Trump announced Friday night that the three allies had launched military strikes to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad for the alleged chemical weapons use and to prevent him from doing it again.The U.S. president said Washington is prepared to "sustain" pressure on Assad until he ends what the president called a criminal pattern of killing his own people with internationally banned chemical weapons. It was not immediately clear whether Trump meant the military operation would extend beyond an initial nighttime round of missile strikes.The Syrian government has repeatedly denied any use of banned weapons.U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said there were no reports of U.S. losses during the initial airstrikes."Right now this is a one-time shot," he said but did not rule out further attacks. He said the airstrikes were launched against several sites that helped provide Assad's ability to create chemical weapons.Britain's defense ministry said that while the effectiveness of the strike is still being analyzed, "initial indications are that the precision of the Storm Shadow weapons and meticulous target planning have resulted in a successful attack."British Prime Minister Theresa May describes the attack as neither "about intervening in a civil war" nor "about regime change" but a limited and targeted strike that "does not further escalate tensions in the region" and does everything possible to prevent civilian casualties."We would have preferred an alternative path. But on this occasion there is none," May said.The decision to strike, after days of deliberations, marked Trump's second order to attack Syria; he authorized a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit a single Syrian airfield in April 2017 in retaliation for Assad's use of sarin gas against civilians.Trump chastised Syria's two main allies, Russia and Iran, for their roles in supporting "murderous dictators," and noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin had guaranteed a 2013 international agreement for Assad to get rid of all of his chemical weapons. He called on Moscow to change course and join the West in seeking a more responsible regime in Damascus.Russia's U.S. embassy released a statement warning that the airstrikes will "not be left without consequences." It said that "all responsibility" rests with Washington, London and Paris.The allied operation comes a year after the U.S. missile strike that Trump said was meant to deter Assad from further use of chemical weapons. Since that did not work, a more intense attack would aim to degrade his ability to carry out further such attacks, and would try to do this by hitting Syrian aircraft, military depots and chemical facilities, among other things.The one-off missile strike in April 2017 targeted the airfield from which the Syrian aircraft had launched their gas attack. But the damage was limited, and a defiant Assad returned to episodic use of chlorine and perhaps other chemicals.Friday's strikes appear to signal Trump's willingness to draw the United States more deeply into the Syrian conflict. The participation of British and French forces enables Trump to assert a wider international commitment against the use of chemical weapons, but the multi-pronged attack carries the risk of Russian retaliation.In his nationwide address, Trump stressed that he has no interest in a longtime fight with Syria."America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria under no circumstances," he said. "As other nations step up their contributions, we look forward to the day when we can bring our warriors home."The U.S. has about 2,000 troops on the ground in Syria as advisers to a makeshift group of anti-Islamic State fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. They are in eastern Syria, far from Damascus. A U.S.-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes in Syria since September 2014 as part of a largely successful effort to break the IS grip on both Syria and Iraq.</s>
• The Pentagon said the US-led military campaign on Syria took out the "heart" of the country's chemical weapons program — but that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad still maintains "residual" capacity.
• The US was also worried that the strikes would prompt a confrontation with Syria's biggest military ally: Russia.
• But the Pentagon said that worry had eased after the US learned that the Syria strikes had not resulted in any Russian casualties.

The Pentagon said Saturday that a series of military strikes on Syria carried out by a US-led coalition struck at the "heart" of Syria’s chemical weapons program.

Director of the Joint Staff Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie confirmed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad still maintains "residual" capacity.

The US, UK, and France carried out a joint operation on Friday night targeting three research facilities in Syria thought to have been involved in the production of chemical weapons.

The military campaign was in response to a devastating chemical attack in the rebel-controlled Damascus suburb of Douma, which killed dozens of people earlier this month. The attack is believed to have been ordered by the Syrian government.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis did not say whether he believed the strikes would deter Assad from using chemical weapons again.

"Nothing is certain in these kinds of matters," he said. "However, we used a little over double the number of weapons this year than we used last year. It was done on targets that we believed were selected to hurt the chemical weapons program. We confined it to the chemical weapons-type targets."

President Donald Trump on Saturday praised the US military, the UK, and France for the operation.

"A perfectly executed strike last night," Trump tweeted Saturday morning. "Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!"

The joint military campaign drew a swift and harsh response from Russia, a key Syrian ally and its strongest partner. Russia has several military bases and thousands of troops in Syria, and the US said Friday that it did not coordinate with or notify Russia of the strikes.

The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed the allegations against Syria and said its own experts found no "trace of chlorine or any other chemical substance used against civilians."

One major concern the US had was that the Syria strikes would prompt a direct confrontation between Washington and Moscow, whose relations have been spiraling downward. But the Pentagon said on Saturday that worry had been eased by the fact that there were no Russian casualties as a result of Friday’s military campaign.

Following the strikes, Russia called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to address the military campaign. A Security Council diplomat said the body would meet later Saturday.</s>President Donald Trump triumphantly declared “Mission Accomplished!” on Saturday following a US-led missile assault on the Syrian regime, and warned another attack could follow if Damascus were to unleash more chemical weapons.

The narrowly targeted pre-dawn US-French-British operation, which took aim at three chemical weapons facilities, earned quick scorn from Russia, But Moscow’s push for condemnation of the strikes at the UN Security Council fell short.

Trump and his allies ordered the quick-strike overnight mission in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack a week ago on the rebel-held town of Douma that left more than 40 people dead.

Washington believes both sarin and chlorine were used in the attack, a senior US administration official told reporters on Saturday.

Both the regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and its ally Russia have denied all responsibility for the April 7 attack. Moscow slammed the “aggressive actions” of the Western coalition, but has not yet responded militarily.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley warned her UN counterparts that although the mission was designed as a one-off, that did not preclude further action against Assad.

“I spoke to the president this morning and he said: ‘If the Syrian regime uses this poisonous gas again, the United States is locked and loaded,'” Haley said at emergency Security Council talks.

Just before dawn on Saturday, the sounds of massive explosions and the roar of warplanes rang out across Damascus for about 45 minutes.

“A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military,” Trump tweeted early Saturday.

Trump drew some criticism for his choice of words: former president George W. Bush notoriously stood on an aircraft carrier just a few weeks after the initial Iraq invasion in 2003 in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner.

“We met our objectives. We hit the sites, the heart of the chem weapons program. So it was mission accomplished,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White later said.

The targets included a scientific research facility near Damascus, a chemical weapons storage facility west of the city of Homs, and a third location near Homs that contained both a command post and a chemical weapons equipment storage facility, the US military said.

According to US officials, the operation involved three US destroyers, a French frigate and a US submarine. The vessels were located in the Red Sea, the Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean.

A top Pentagon official, Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, said the action would set back Syria’s chemical weapons program “for years,” but he noted a “residual” element remained.

“I’m not going to say that they are going to be unable to continue to conduct a chemical attack in the future,” McKenzie said.

“I suspect, however, they’ll think long and hard about it based on the activities of last night.”

Trump, who announced the start of the joint strikes late Friday, called the Douma attack the “crimes of a monster,” referring to Assad.

On Saturday, Trump called British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss their joint action.

Assad, who has denied ever using chemical weapons against his opponents, responded to the strikes with a defiant vow.

“This aggression will only make Syria and its people more determined to keep fighting and crushing terrorism in every inch of the country,” he said.

Assad’s key ally Iran also slammed the attack, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei describing Western leaders as “criminals.”

The targets appeared to steer well clear of any Russian personnel or equipment in Syria, where Moscow launched a military intervention in support of Assad in 2015.

The Russian military claimed Syrian air defense systems had intercepted 71 Western missiles, though the Pentagon flatly dismissed the claim and said all missiles hit their targets.

In central Damascus, dozens of Syrians arrived on bicycles, on foot and in cars spray painted with the red, white, and black colors of the Syrian flag, blaring patriotic tunes.

“History will record that Syria shot down missiles — and not just missiles. It shot down American arrogance,” he said.

Despite the strikes, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it was still pursuing its investigation into the Douma attack.

Thousands of rebels and civilians have since been bussed out of the town under a Russian-brokered deal. Syrian internal security forces entered Douma on Saturday and said the town would be secured within hours.

Jaish al-Islam, the group that held Douma, said it only abandoned the town because of the chemical attack.

“Assad won’t collapse. They’ll bomb for a day or two and then the regime will take it out on us,” he said.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres asked for restraint in comments Saturday before the Security Council.

“At this critical juncture, I call on all member states to act consistently with the charter of the United Nations and with international law, including the norms against chemical weapons,” he said.

An effort by Russia to secure UN condemnation of the strikes failed in the Council, only winning three of the nine votes needed for adoption.
The United States, France, and the United Kingdom target chemical weapon sites and other Syrian military sites with missile strikes on early Saturday morning Syrian time (EET), in response to the Douma chemical attack.