Friday 7 April 2017

4 children among 9 civilians dead in US Syria strike





A US missile strike targeting an airbase in central Syria killed nine civilians, including four children, on Friday, state news agency SANA reported.

The news agency said five of the civilians, among them three children, were killed in the village of Shayrat just outside the base of the same name.

In this image released by the US Navy, the guided-missile destroyer USS Porter conducts strike operations while in the Mediterranean Sea, April 7, 2017.

US President Donald Trump ordered a massive military strike on a Syrian air base on Thursday in retaliation for a “barbaric” chemical attack he blamed on President Bashar al-Assad. The missiles were fired from the USS Porter and the USS Ross, which belong to the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet and are located in the eastern Mediterranean. / AFP.

“An American missile also hit the village of Al-Hamrat, which killed four civilians including a child,” it added.

“Another seven civilians were wounded when a missile hit homes in Al-Manzul, four kilometres (two and a half miles) away from the Shayrat air base,” it added.

Washington said it fired a barrage of 59 cruise missiles at the Shayrat base in response to what President Donald Trump called a “barbaric” chemical attack on a rebel-held town on Tuesday that he blamed on the Damascus regime.

The Pentagon said it believed the aircraft that carried out the deadly attack on Khan Sheikhun came from the Shayrat base.

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

The Syrian army had said earlier that six people were killed in the strike on the base — the first time that the US has directly attacked the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

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