A news report says:
U.S., British and French forces struck Syria with more than 100 missiles on Saturday in the first coordinated Western strikes against the Damascus government, targetting what they called chemical weapons sites in retaliation for a poison gas attack.
Any air defenses that Syria, Iran, or Russia had near the strikes were apparently ineffective.
Funny enough, this is the coalition prepared to strike Assad in 2013 before the Kerry-Lavrov deal "solved" the problem of Assad having and using chemical weapons.
Mattis announced the strike last night.
The Pentagon briefing is here:
The targets that were struck and destroyed were specifically associated with the Syrian regime's chemical weapons program. We also selected targets that would minimize the risk to innocent civilians.
The first target was a scientific research center located in the greater Damascus area. This military facility was a Syrian center for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology.
The second target was a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs. We assessed that this was the primary location of Syrian sarin and precursor production equipment.
The third target, which was in the vicinity of the second target, contained both a chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post.
U.S., British and French Naval and Air Forces were involved in the operation. And for reasons of operational security, I won't be more specific this evening.
American naval forces are still closing on Syria. In an upcoming data dump I had written that having the cruise missile launchers made sense to me. But I wondered why wait for aircraft carriers when there are potential bases on land close by (and the B-2s and F-22s could come from land bases anyway)? I wondered if the carrier deployment was a red herring. And I asked if one or two of our cruise missile subs are in the Mediterranean Sea, could the surface ships with cruise missiles also be a red herring, making people believe we can't strike until the visible surface ships arrive?
Well, we did strike before the other very visible assets arrived. Although it wasn't as big of a strike as I thought (but I was right that it would not be multi-day), perhaps constrained by the size of what was there last night.
UPDATE: Forces that are heading for the region will be useful to discourage any counter-strikes at American, British, and French forces nearby.
UPDATE: Public differences between ambassador to the UN Haley and defense secretary Mattis on the quality of the evidence may have been for the purpose of achieving tactical surprise by making it seem like the debate was ongoing.
UPDATE: News report is that British aircraft from Cyprus; French aircraft launched from France plus missiles from French warships; and American missiles from a ship in the Red Sea plus B-1s launched from Qatar took part in the strike.
UPDATE: Note that there are two types of surprise, strategic and tactical. In the big picture, there was no surprise that we would strike Assad. That was virtually assured. Tactically, we likely had surprise by striking before publicized assets are still far from Syria. But tactical surprise is limited by the fact that no strike was going to be delayed for long (we could have achieve total tactical surprise by striking in 2020, but then it wouldn't be considered legitimate retaliation); and we deconflicted with Russia to reduce risk of escalation. Hopefully, Syrian forces were on alert long enough to get tired.
UPDATE: Syria claims to have shot down 71 of 103 missiles fired. That seems unlikely, but a US press briefing in about an hour will likely address that. Although it is totally possible to shoot down cruise missiles, of course.
UPDATE: More, including Haley's claim that Assad has used chemical weapons at least 50 times since 2011. I'd be more interested in the tally since the glorious chemical weapons deal that Russia engineered--to save Assad and not to get rid of Assad's chemical weapons capability, I should add.
UPDATE: Again, it is interesting that the potential coalition of 2013 to respond to a major Assad crossing of the Obama chemical weapons use red line resumed its course of action in 2018 after a nearly 5 year interval that was used to pretend we solved the Assad chemical weapons problem.
UPDATE: And as I understand it, the participation of France means Trump passed that "global test" liberals said America had to pass before taking military action.
UPDATE: Russia has called for a UN Security Council meeting. Which likely means that Russia plans nothing more substantive. Which is why I support remaining in the UN. For all its flaws it is a useful place for people to vent their anger and simulate action rather than taking action that risks wider war.
UPDATE: The briefer says that the Syrians failed to intercept any missiles and that Russia did not attempt to shoot down any. Indeed, the Syrians fired 40 air defense missiles when it was too late. I wonder where those landed? [UPDATE: Here's the briefing transcript.]
UPDATE: Reporters really do have a Pavlovian response to the simple "mission accomplished" statement about the strikes. Good Lord, people, the strike mission was successfully accomplished. Does it stop Assad from using chemical weapons again? That's another question.
UPDATE: I'm assuming that no American, French, or British strike aircraft entered Syrian air space to launch weapons.
UPDATE: Let me link to my post from a year ago about why prior Congressional approval is not the only way it is legal for the president to initiate military action.
UPDATE: Our NATO allies, including Turkey, backed the joint strike after receiving a briefing.
UPDATE: At the Americas summit, Canada backed the strike but Brazil, reflecting regional ambivalence, stated:
"There's deep concern in Brazil with the escalation of military conflict in Syria," Brazilian President Michel Temer told the summit.
So America, by leading a strike with France and Britain on Assad's chemical warfare capabilities, may have escalated a war that has seen perhaps 450,000 dead already? Fascinating.
International law and diplomacy in 2013 did not solve this problem or deescalate violence.
UPDATE: One last update. Could we all remember that Syria fed jihadis into Syria where they became suicide bombers who killed our troops and a lot of Iraqis? Whatever else is involved, Assad deserves whatever we do to him.
Also, although Saudi Arabia publicly volunteered to take part, they apparently did not--unless they participated in supporting sorties not in the strike mission. But the Saudis must have given permission for American missiles and planes to fly over Saudi territory. Also, Jordan must have allowed overflights. And Qatar allowed it to be known that the B-1s took off from their territory.
UPDATE: One last addition that I hadn't noted: some American missiles were launched from the Persian Gulf.
