Six people have been confirmed dead after the United States of America has carried out a missile strike against a Syrian air base in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town.
Fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from two US Navy ships in the Mediterranean.
It is the first direct US military action against forces commanded by Syria’s president.
The Kremlin, which backs Bashar al-Assad, has condemned the strike.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, called it “an act of aggression against a sovereign nation”.
The attack, at 04:40 Syrian time (01:40 GMT), comes just days after dozens of civilians, including many children, died in the suspected nerve gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province.
Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, US President Donald Trump branded President Assad a “dictator” who had “launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians”.
Mr Trump said he had acted in America’s “vital national security interest” to prevent the use of chemical weapons.
“Tonight I call on all civilised nations to join us in seeking to end this slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types,” he said.
The UK government called the US strike “an appropriate response to the barbaric chemical weapons attack”.
The Pentagon said the Russian military, which supports Syrian government forces, had been informed ahead of the US action.
In a statement the Pentagon said missiles fired from Navy destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross had targeted aircraft, aircraft shelters, storage areas, ammunition supply bunkers, air defence systems, and radars at Shayrat airfield in western Homs province.
The Pentagon added that the strike was intended “to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again”.
A White House spokesman said it believed “with a high degree of confidence” that Tuesday’s chemical attack had been launched from the Shayrat airfield by warplanes under the command of President Assad.
He also said the White House believed the substance used was the nerve agent Sarin, which is highly toxic and considered 20 times as deadly as cyanide.
A statement on Syrian state TV said “American aggression” had targeted a Syrian military base with “a number of missiles”.
The Syrian army spokesman later said the attack had left six people dead, a number of others wounded, and caused significant damage. He did not say whether the people affected were civilian or military.
Governor of Homs province where the Shayrat base is located, Talal Barazi, told AFP by telephone “There are martyrs, but we don’t yet know the number either of martyrs or of wounded.”
