A view of the damaged Shayrat airfield southeast of the Syrian city of Homs, which was targeted by US Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Qatar expressed its support for the US military operations against military targets used by the Syrian regime in carrying out its attacks on innocent civilians.
The US air strikes —59 missiles launched from the USS Ross and USS Porter — hit the government-controlled Shayrat air base in central Syria, where US officials say the Syrian military planes that dropped the chemicals had taken off. The US missiles hit at 8:45 pm in Washington, 3:45 Friday morning in Syria. The missiles targeted the base's airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas, officials said. The Syrian military said at least 7 people were killed and several were wounded in the strikes on the air base.
In a statement, Qatar's Foreign Ministry said the continuation of the heinous crimes that the regime has been committing for years against the Syrian people, which claimed thousands of lives, including children and women, calls for intensifying efforts to put an end to the tragedy of the Syrian people. The Foreign Ministry also blamed the Syrian regime for exposure to these military operations.
The statement called on the international society to shoulder its responsibilities in order to stop the crimes of the regime and its use of internationally prohibited weapons, bring the perpetrators to international justice, find a solution to the crisis that responds to the will of the Syrian people, and form a transitional government that ensures the preservation of Syria's unity and institutions.
Saudi Arabia also expressed strong support for the US operations carried out against military targets in Syria, blaming the responsibility for the strikes on the Syrian regime, an official source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said according to state news agency SPA.
The US operations "came in response to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime against innocent civilians that caused the deaths of scores of people, including women and children, and is part of the ongoing horrible crimes being committed by this regime over many years against the Syrian people," the source said.
Trump, who has long warned against the US getting involved in Syria's civil war, is said to have been moved to act by the heartbreaking images of children killed in a chemical weapons attack earlier this week. Even as his advisers insisted that the strikes did not mark a significant shift in US policy, Trump called on other nations to help "end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria."
