Russian President Putin slams Trump's strike on Syria!

• The Russian President has called the strike a violation of international norms.

AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin considers the US strike on a Syrian airbase early this morning as "aggression against a sovereign state," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, according to Russian agencies.

"President Putin considers American strikes on Syria aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international norms, and under an invented pretext," Peskov was reported as saying.

President Donald Trump ordered the strike on a Syrian air base in retaliation for a "barbaric" chemical attack he blamed on President Bashar al-Assad.

In a brief televised address delivered hours after the UN Security Council failed to agree on a probe into the apparent chemical attack, Trump confirmed the first American targeted strike against Assad's regime.
Declaring it in America's "vital national security interest" to prevent the spread of deadly chemical weapons, Trump accused Assad of a "very barbaric attack" in which "even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered".

'Virtually destroyed'

The attack virtually destroyed the base's facilities, a monitoring group said.

"An air commodore was among the four soldiers killed," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"The airbase was almost completely destroyed - the runway, the fuel tanks and the air defences were all blown to pieces," the Britain-based monitoring group said.

"There were Sukhoi-22, Sukhoi-24 and MiG-23? fighter aircraft on the ground, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Washington said that Russian military officials in Syria were informed of the strike beforehand in order to avoid casualties that could prompt a broader crisis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this morning he supports the "strong and clear message" sent by the US strike.

The Israeli military said it had been informed in advance of the attack plan.

The airstrikes overshadowed President Trump's Florida summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Trump informed the Chinese leader personally of the missile strikes, a senior administration official told AFP.