so correlate happened in the security council they have not supported strong measures to constrain postural assad's activities knowing i would point out is you know sadly for the syrians these issues are only about syria for the syrians everyone else has a much broader perspective from the perspective of washington they've also got their eye on the nuclear issues having to do with both north korea and iran so it's kim young room is watching what's going on here if nothing happens to boss real saw washington's got a great concern that he's going to get the wrong message and if if president trump sees him in next month that's a big issue likewise is a big issue with the iran nuclear deal where there's a critical review in washington and a president from so far has said he's willing to walk away from the nuclear deal with iran so there's a there's a lot of complexities here and if the united states and its allies let postural sawed off the hook on this if there's a lot of comfort consequences in other places all right charles duelfer thank you

very much indeed very good to talk to you thank you so let's. let's remind ourselves and of what has happened in the last hour also president trump has announced positions strikes are under way in syria in response to last saturday's suspected chemical weapons attack in the town of doom a chill day after he made the announcement syrian state t.v. it hosted several loud explosions in the capital damascus and they've also reported that they have shut down several missiles in damascus. right i'm going to get a stop what i'm saying now because we're going to go right to the pens again in washington and let's listen to what the defense secretary james mattis has to say. on april seventh the regime decided to again defy the norms of civilized people showing callous disregard for international law by using chemical weapons to murder

women children and other innocent we and our allies find these atrocities inexcusable as our commander in chief the president has the authority under article two of the constitution to use military force overseas to defend important united states national interests the united states has a vital national interest in averting a worsening catastrophe in syria and specifically deterring the use and proliferation of chemical weapons last year in response to a chemical weapons attack against civilians and to signal the regime to cease chemical weapons use we targeted the military base from which the weapons were delivered earlier today president trump directed the u.s. military to conduct operations and continents with our allies to destroy the syrian regime's chemical weapons research development and production capability tonight

france the united kingdom and the united states took decisive action to strike the syrian chemical weapons infrastructure. clearly the assad regime did not get the message. ok we seem to have lost the sound then james mattis have way. perpetrate another chemical weapons attack for which they will be held accountable the seventy nations in the defeat isis coalition remain committed to defeating isis in syria the strike tonight separately demonstrates international resolve to prevent chemical weapons from being used on anyone under any circumstance in contravention of international law. i want to emphasize that these strikes are directed at the syrian regime and conducting these strikes we have gone to great lengths to avoid civilian and foreign casualties but it is

a time for all civilized nations to urgently unite and ending this sid syrian civil war by supporting the united nations back to an eva peace process in accordance with the chemical weapons convention prohibiting the use of such weapons we urge responsible nations to condemn the assad regime and to join us in our firm resolve to prevent chemical weapons from being used again general dunford will provide a military update agreement i'm joined by our friend to say she's a brigadier general montague in our british. air vice marshal gavin parker secretary madis is just on the policy and legal framework for tonight's strike in syria i will address the strike from the military dimension at nine pm eastern standard time french british and u.s. forces struck targets in syria in support of president strums objective to deter

the future use of chemical weapons our forces were integrated throughout the planning and execution of the operation 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 holmes we assessed that this was the primary location of syrian sharon and precursor production equipment the third target which was in the vicinity of the second target contained both the chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post u.s. british and french naval and air forces were involved in the operation in for

reasons of operational security i won't be more specific to see me before we take questions i'd like to address of this evening strike where qualitatively and quantitatively different than two thousand two thousand thing last year we conducted a unilateral strike on a single site the focus was on the aircraft associated with the syrian chemical weapons attack in april of two thousand and seventeen the c. evening we conducted strikes with two allies on multiple sites that were result in a long term degradation of syria's capability to research develop and employ chemical and biological weapons important infrastructure was destroyed which will result in a setback for the syrian regime they will lose years of research and development data specialized equipment and expensive chemical weapons precursors the strike was not only a strong message to the regime that their actions were inexcusable but it also inflicted maximum damage without unnecessary risk to innocent civilians and with

that the secretary and i would be glad to take your questions. mr. first of all how did the u.s. assault for any losses initially and more broadly you could do the president in his remarks said that the u.s. and its allies are prepared to sustain. this operation until syria using chemical weapons does this mean u.s. and partners will continue military operations but beyond this additional operations and that will depend on mr assad should he decide to use more chemical weapons in the future and of course the the powers that have signed the chemical weapons prohibition have every reason to challenge assad should he choose to violate that but right now this is a one time shot and i believe that is send

a very strong message to dissuade him to deter him from doing this again off. we'll will brief on that in the we're not we want to give you a full brief in the morning right now we have no reports of losses. so i got to about this chair and thank you for doing that have you seen any indication from the russians or the iranians and how and how long you think this could last isn't about that oh i would it's only days. go lot longer than that. we did we did have some initial surface to air missile activity from the syrian regime that's your only retaliatory action that we're aware of at this time and in the nature of the operation we've completed the targets that were assigned the united states central command those operations are complete. comfort and also secretary not us could you talk a little bit more about your concerns that you've expressed earlier in the week up

now russian escalation dunford were you able to talk to your russian counterparts general karasu what are your concerns about escalation and permitted to ask your british counterpart a question i would like to know you the sense of your government about whether you the situation with the disco balls and the russian involvement in that how that motion in politics played a role in your decision to enter this coalition the safe harbor let me let me address the last point first to shay's was kind enough to join us this evening they're not going to get out in front of their president and prime minister respectively so that it will be the national messages will be provided from the capital city very soon but with regard to the russian concerns we specifically. identify these targets to mitigate the risk of russian forces being involved and we used our normal the conflicts in channels those were active this week to work through the airspace issues and so forth we did not do any coordination with the

russians on the strikes nor did we print pretty notify them. here which is a couple of days ago that you said you're still assessing the intelligence on the chemical weapons attack suspected attack. so this point you know what the chemical was used in that attack was it's there and was there chlorine and also what is your evidence that was actually delivered by the syrian regime. say the last part again talk to your evidence that was delivered by the syrian regime are you quite clear what i am confident the syrian regime conducted a chemical attack on innocent people. in this last last week yes absolutely confident of it and we have the intelligence level of competence that we needed to conduct the attack it's restores the actual chemical used you know what it was was a nerve agent it was a chlorine give us a sense of what it was. we are very much aware one of the agents there may be have

been more than one agent used we are not clear on that yet we know at least one chemical agent was used. i just want to clarify on the decomposition might you notify the russians ahead of time before the operation began what you were going to do and what targets you were going to strike going to be clear the only the only communications that took place the syfy associated with this operation before the targets were struck was the normal d. confliction of the airspace the procedures that are in place for all of our operations in syria. now on for you mentioned. russian or the syrian air defenses had engaged the syrian state t.v. saying they shot down thirteen tomahawk missiles can you refute that jennifer i can't tell you the results we literally as you know the time on target was about an hour ago and we came straight up here to give you the best information we have

right now to more morning the secretary talk about a minute we'll give you that more detail operational update and some of the details but those details aren't available to us right now but there are strikes is over this wave of air strikes is over that's where we're out here speaking to you know. i'm not as. i want to follow up on you what you said about the legal basis for the strike could you talk a little bit more about that because in your testimony the other day it sounded like you were saying that this is a potential strike with somehow be linked to self-defense i mean that the presence of american forces in syria can you say a little bit more about that and also we're talking whether or not there will be future action additional strikes. he said they would depend upon whether or not the outside government conducts future chemical attacks by. explaining a little bit more about what would be the threshold for that because there were repeated chemical attacks between april twenty twenty seventeen attack and today and would you consider a smaller scale chlorine attack sufficient to lodge additional strikes and right

now i would just tell you we're in close consultation with our allies we review all the evidence all the time it is difficult if you know to get evidence out of sheria but right now we have no additional attacks planned but as far as the legal authority under the article two of the constitution we believe the president has every reason to defend vital american interests and that is what he did here tonight under that authority. that's a couple questions for general time for what were some of the targeting considerations for difficulties involved going after chemical facilities how long did the operation take to plan and simply mass lester the last two strikes you described as proportional moderate. how would you describe the shooters. contrast that to so many weeks we chose these particular targets to mitigate the risk of

civilian casualties number one we told chose these targets because they were specifically associated with the chemical program the syrian chemical program and obviously we take a look at target planning and so forth we look at the location relative to other proper weight in areas collateral damage proportionality so these stories were carefully selected with proportionality discrimination and being specifically associated with the chemical program weapons or any of the manned aircraft we're going to we're going to we're going to there were there were manned aircraft involved i won't give you any of the details operation until to morrow morning but we will do that at that time and still think your single best year of. the get a question to secretary matt it's so up until yesterday and i'm going to quote you here you said i cannot tell you that we have evidence so when did you become confident that the chemical attack had been and the second one yesterday you have to you said that yes second you talked about targeting the chemical weapons

infrastructure for the us that if there were actually at any chemical weapons or agents in those facilities that you targeted i assume they would create a health hazard in the region or not. we don't believe we did very close analysis as the chairman pointed out we did everything we could in our intelligence assessment in our planning to minimize to the maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties we were very. much aware this is difficult to do in a situation like this especially when the. poison gas that assad assured the world he had gotten rid of obviously still exists so it is a challenge enough problem set and we had the right military officers dealing with it and there's going to be no lead into the air for tonight but we'll do our best. back when those surface to air defenses engaged did they become

a target and this airpower or other assets take out those targets i'm not aware of any response that we took right now again will gather overnight as you can imagine we tried to leave the united states central command alone here tonight there were quite busy will through the night gather the operational details will be back to morrow morning to provide that to the. city manager or chairman number that had last time last year you changed the force protection levels for the syrian troops that were u.s. troops there in syria there are two thousand u.s. troops in syria if you change force protection levels based on potential responses from russia your hands as you can imagine the commander always takes prudent measures and especially in an environment that they were in tonight so they did make adjustments just to be clear on the confliction line you told them that you're going to be operating in airspace but you didn't tell them the russians what the what the targets were it isn't it is absolutely correct we used a normal de confliction channels to the conflict the airspace that we were using we

did not coordinate targets or or any planning with the russians to response or we pass that information was passed at the operational link from the combined air operations center in qatar so it wasn't on the line but we that that kind of information just to put it in perspective is pass routinely every day and every night so they may they may not have found anything unusual about that particular airspace deconstruction. thanks so much that team and some of the financial times can you talk a little bit about any iran targets the you initially involved association targets that you initially considered on why you may have not gone with them under control colleagues explain exactly the sort of contribution that you've made to tonight's operation. our allied officers are here out of respect for the fact that they were part of the mission from planning all the way through to the political decision taken and once there had to. state speak tomorrow and that will be the initial

statement from most capitals but as far as any other targets we looked at targets specifically designed to address the chemical weapons threat that we have seen manifested the whole world is watched in horror these weapons being used those are the only targets that we were examining for prosecution. the secretary general dunford if you did not mention three target areas that were struck how can you be sure that from now on these are all of the target areas or all of the involved in production facilities for chemical weapons that the syrians have are using and you believe that there are additional locations where they are producing such materials and this is a great question we had a number of targets to select from and again we did not select those that had a high risk of collateral damage and specifically a high risk of civilian casualties and so the weapon airing you know back to the

earlier question the weapon hearing was done the modeling was done to make sure that we mitigated the risk of any chemicals that were in those facilities and mitigate the risk of civilian casualties so were there other targets that we looked at there were we selected these specific targets both based on the significance to the chemical weapons weapons program as well as the location and the layout. and i think. it seems like this strike tonight was pretty limited not too dissimilar from last year and i was to be three targets this time instead of one but it seems a little bit more target or more specific than what i think a lot of people were expecting can you walk us through your decision to do did did you concern about escalation with russia take your decision to keep this more targeted and moving from there how much assurance can you give us that this is going to do with a strike last year didn't do. which is basically to stop president assad from using

chemical weapons but again how many nothing is certain in these kinds of matters however we used a little over double the number of weapons this year and we use last year. it was done on targets that we believed were elected. to hurt the chemical weapons program we can find it through the chemical weapons type targets we were not out to expand this we were very precise and proportionate but at the same time it was a heavy strike. mr secretary prior to the attack how important was it to get the support from the allies not only from an intelligence point of view but also just from the from the countries themselves. it's always important that we act internationally in a unified way over something especially that is that is such an atrocity as this. that we've observed going on in syria but i would also tell you that these allies

the americans the french the british we have operated together through thick and thin through good times and bad and this is a very very well integrated teen wherever we operate we do show with complete trust in each other the professionalism but more than that the belief that one another all be there when the chips are down so it's important and it's it's a statement about the level of trust between our nations. but as to whether the syrians were able to hide a lot of these chemical weapons the last several days since has been so much talk about a possible strike that gives the syrians time to try to move some of these weapons off when it's off limits and then secretary mabus just to confirm earlier when he was saying you know if mission about one of the chemicals but we're also in that means boreen that you had information confirming chlorine but not necessarily sarin

if you just clarify that part to fill the first question i'm not aware of any specific actions that the syrians took to move chemical weapons in the last couple of days. we are very confident that that chlorine was used we are not ruling out sarin right now you. said i like fall off a moot question about targets did you first the dam and then. down the street tonight it sounds like you want to sylvie's and not the actual weapons that you kate earlier to minimize accidental missed to civilians in the targets that remain if you characterize perhaps the ability to proceed to ramp up again and again have chemical weapons i think it's too early to make that assessment it's too early to make that assessment right now. thank you general dunford did any russian defenses engage u.s. british or french ships were missiles and secretary mabus were any of the strikes

tonight intended to kill bashar al assad the only the only reaction that i'm aware of at this time was syrian surface to air missiles have been to be done in national command military command center and was aware of that activity i'm not aware of any russian activity i'm not aware of the full scope of the syrian regime response at this time again those would be details we'll pull together for you in a more. the targets tonight again were specifically designed to degrade the syrian war machines ability to create chemical weapons and due to set that back right now there were no attempts to broaden or expand that target set and made gentlemen thank you for coming in this evening based on recent experience we fully expect a significant descent from asian campaign over the coming days by those who have aligned themselves with the assad regime and in an effort to maintain cranch barents sea and accuracy my assistant for public affairs minister dana white and

lieutenant general mckenzie the director of the joint staff here in washington will provide a brief of known details tomorrow morning we anticipate about nine o'clock in this same same location but thank you again for coming in this evening ladies and gentlemen. so there you have. general mattis and general dunford there addressing the media giving a full rundown as to what's going on in the last couple of hours from what he was saying it sounds very much as though the operation is now over it seemed very much as though we're talking about three specific targets he made he emphasized the fact that this is really the objective was to take out chemical weapons production facilities and that was that was very clear from what he said there was a there was a site in homes which was a storage facility for chemical weapons they said as well as the site the research

science center which is just outside of the city of damascus and there was a command and control center as well and they took pains to emphasize that they had specifically selected the targets in order to avoid civilian casualties and obviously we'll find out more detail as to what has happened on the ground as light emerges in the morning but for now let's speak to while al is a two has served as a senior syria adviser to samantha power the u.s. ambassador the former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. and president obama he's in washington d.c. so what do you make of it all it sounds very cut and dried quite clean in and out. thank you first of all you know my thoughts and prayers or really with the people of syria and with. the men and women in uniform as a syrian american my heart is with both. it is cut and dry it seems to be in east specific. strike against regime targets to send

a signal to assad the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. i do take matters at his word that this is meant to establish deterrence and the president as well has said that deterrence against or for the use. and i am wondering about the how how will they be able to measure the success of this operation presumably it will be the fact that the assad regime will not use chemical weapons again is that what your measure success of this operation or this operation yes it seems that is the litmus test that is the metric to measure. whether it's a success though i disagree that there is the right measurement the true measure for success is deterring the regime not only from using chemical weapons but from inflicting additional mass slaughter on its people were chemical weapons or barrel

bombs or mass starvation or or mass rape. you know i think it's a it's a necessary step but it is incomplete. to reason may the british prime minister i mean she was at pains in her statement to the british people to emphasize the fact that this was a very limited operation without the intention of skewing the civil war the level the playing field on the ground at the moment and certainly not about regime change so she was quite specific that this had such a specific objective and that seems very much to have been completed successfully. the strikes. consequences are remain to be to be seen the regime may continue using chemical weapons as it has in the past but really the options or the alternatives you know the options here are not either. you know specific attacks

in response to chemical weapons or regime change there is something in between here which could include deterring the use of other. attacks against civilian targets as i mentioned so would you or would you prefer then what are the can be done to deter future attacks here and what should that be would you prefer that they have a greater military involvement by the united states and its allies in this particular case do you think they should go in more more wholeheartedly let's be very clear not regime change not boots on the ground but similar tactics on a wider scale to take out for example regime air assets to take out its integrated air defense systems and to take out some of its artillery pieces or pummeling urban centers all across the country so those i think would degrade the regime's capacity to inflict harm on the syrian people without regime change

ok thank you very much indeed while. talking to us live from washington d.c. thank you very much right now we can talk to. our correspondent there no harder harder is our correspondent he's joining us now from the lebanese capital beirut. so this seems to have been a fairly quick operation involving the three countries operating from the air and it seems very much have been targeting three specific targets. yes a very limited operation not a sustained military operation both the u.s. president and the british prime minister making it clear that this is not about to change this is not about toppling the syrian government they made that very clear and we heard from the pentagon saying that what they targeted was the syrian government's chemical weapons facilities they wanted to destroy the chemical weapon

infrastructure in the country very different of course than the strike last year following the chemical weapons attack in the northern town of horn the u.s. response at the time targeted the shah you dropped airbase but in a few days time that air base was repaired and eight nine months later we saw this new chemical attack now we have to make clear that matters himself is saying that he has not confirmed the use of a serin so he's still insisting that they do not have that confirmation from the chemical weapons attack so is this a face saving way out of this crisis because as we saw over recent days tensions were so high and there was a risk of confrontation between the united states and russia there were behind the scenes contacts but the united states could not have backed down it was in a very difficult position after the rhetoric after the statements that were made by

trump so is this a way out of a crisis because it is still not clear how much damage this has caused and whether or not the syrian government has received the message because the syrian government is in a very comfortable position it knows that there is no alternative on the ground and for the west toppling the government is not on the table because that will only create more chaos and more problems for europe because that for example will send refugees finding their way way to europe so right now the syrian government feels very comfortable and like we mentioned this is a very. a limited operation and i'm not sure how successful it is right to end but the year the massively important point that was flagged up quite strenuously by the un secretary general in the security council was the possibility of this inadvertently spiraling out of control involving the other players who are on the ground in syria russia and of course iran it seems very much at this stage that

they have a verted that it's a potential danger. yes and some diplomatic sources have been talking about the disagreements between the french and the united states and that's why they were reluctant and that's why there was a lot of conversations because the french and the europeans did not want to see an all out attack against iranian targets targets of hezbollah bases for example the lebanese hezbollah movement which is allied to iran and fight alongside the syrian government they did not want this to happen and what we understand is that the israelis where we're pushing for this now the iranians of course they have bases in syria and the russians as well now the americans are saying that the russians were not informed and were not told about the targets in advance but but clearly they took precautions not to target an area where there are russian personnel because if russian personnel are hurt then this will in one way or another put russian

a very difficult position and it will have to retaliate definitely the efforts in the past few days really have tried to contain this crisis as much as possible but everyone was expecting some sort of a strike because the u.s. government could knock back down after all of the statements all the statements that were made now the question is there is a team of chemical weapons inspectors now in damascus and they're supposed to head to do more that is the town where these suspected chemical weapons attack occurred last weekend what is going to happen to this to this fact finding mission and if it's outcome as finding suggests that chemical weapons were actually used are we going to see a second wave of air strikes it is still unclear. and the interesting thing also. is. that as you say that team are on the ground there and before they've even had a chance to start examining the scene the americans primarily moved very quickly

didn't they from james masses saying we're not entirely sure we're still assessing the intelligence to being pretty certain that chemical weapons have been used and the culprit was the syrian regime. this was a very very serious crisis and that is why for example turkey turkey intervened and tried to mediate opened a channel of communication between the russians and the nato alliance turkey of course being a member of that alliance and we've heard many officials express concern about the possibility of this spiraling out of control there are many many players in syria and even during the past week while the united states was deciding on what option to take we saw the highest iranian official the top advisor of the supreme leader of iran. arriving in damascus showing support to the syrian government and

not just showing support to the syrian government issuing two warnings one of those warnings was to the israeli government saying that you will pay the price and we will retaliate for it because you targeted a syrian army base. for air base and seven revolutionary guards were killed iran actually acknowledging that seven of its elite members of its force were killed and the laity is also warning the united states that you know you have troops in the northeast of the country and for us the east of the euphrates that is the area where these u.s. troops are based is a target so iran and the iranians also issuing warnings so this was a very very dangerous crisis and what we understand is that there were a lot of efforts to try to diffuse and deescalate the situation but the united states was in a position that it couldn't back down and so now what we saw is this limited action and not a sustained military action that many expected of course

a much stronger response than what happened last year but nevertheless a limited response all right thank you very much zain ahold of our correspondent there live in beirut or let's go back to allan fish and allan fishes in washington d.c. the scene of so. much of the excitement in the last couple of hours and alan james mattis interesting the pains to point out what the legal cover for the president's action was many people no doubt questioning whether donald trump has the authority to to undertake this kind of military action without consulting congress. that's going to be a big debate over the next few days as we spoke about before donald trump made his announcement and certainly we're getting some indication of that from a number of politicians on a number of pressure groups as well mike pence who is the vice president currently in lima for a conference of the americas he was informed that the president was going to speak at nine o'clock eastern time in the united states at that point he left the conference went to his hotel room and started to make calls among the calls he made

to nancy pelosi leader of the democrats in the senate to paul ryan speaker of the house he also spoke to mitch mcconnell who is of course the senior senator for the republicans he tried to get a hold of charles schumer the senior senator for the democrats but couldn't get a hold of him after trying the number several times and eventually sent him an email this to schumer was in the air at the time then james mattis appeared i was seeing under article two of the constitution the president has the right to order these airstrikes because of this and defense of american national interest that is a statement is coming out of the white house as well and we know that that's among the republican talking points for people who will appear in the morning shows in the united states on saturday however a number of democratic senators are already seeing it is illegal and unconstitutional quite simply because the u.s. president can't declare war on his own he has to go to congress to seek approval it

was a point that was made to jim mattis when he gave evidence on the hill just about twenty four thirty six hours ago also interesting as well that they said at the time do you have the evidence to launch airstrikes and he said no we don't but he was asked about that specifically at the news conference at the pentagon and said some of that information arrived on friday and that convinced him that this attack should go forward there's also a number of pressure groups are saying that what donald trump is against international law here is a new mandate from the united nations we know that the security council veto that was wielded by russia stop that going any farther and. seeing how on earth can you hold up international law by breaking international law this is going to be part of the story that will run in the days and weeks to come all right thank you very much alan fischer other fisher that live in washington d.c. so as you've been hearing in the last half hour i'll say the u.s. defense actually james mattis he's been speaking he's called the only u.n.

members to stand up against the assad regime i want to emphasize that these strikes are directed at the syrian regime in conducting these strikes we have gone to great lengths to avoid civilian and foreign casualties but it is a time for all civilized nations to urgently unite in ending this sid syrian civil war by supporting the united nations back to an even peace process in accordance with the chemical weapons convention prohibiting the use of such weapons we urge responsible nations to condemn the assad regime and to join us in our firm resolve to prevent chemical weapons from being used again all right let's go to another of our correspondents our gabriel is on the he's there actually at the pentagon and gabe so this sounded like a fairly precise moment surgical operation involving three different countries.

yeah that's right we did hear from the secretary of defense james madison joseph dunford the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff they just left they briefed the media here on this operation again let's just take a step back to get the facts that were given from the secretary of defense and the joint steve chiefs just a few minutes ago the key facts are this and it's good to summarize them one more time three targets were hit within syria the first target was just outside of the capital of damascus and the pentagon said that it was a scientific research center that was used by the syrian regime according to the pentagon. to manufacture chemical weapons that's the first target the second target was just west of holmes syria and it was a storage facility of chemical weapons according to the pentagon and the third target also west of homs a command post according to the pentagon those were the three target areas they did

stress that this operation is over in the words of the secretary of defense it was a quote one time shot it is not going to be extended at least not this particular mission so this is now over he also did stress that they did to target these trying to eliminate or alleviate any sort of civilian casualties as much as they could they said that they had multiple targets that they could have hit they specifically pointed out these three targets according to the pentagon because these are the ones that would make the most damage to the syrian regime's ability to produce chemical weapons and then deliver chemical weapons and then also these three facilities according to the pentagon were areas that would alleviate any sort of potential. collateral damage so to speak so that's the key facts that we have now how did the u.s. receive some incoming fire the short answer to that is yes we did hear that they

did. surface to air missiles from the syrian regime when this operation was going on but in terms of any more details on that there just simply weren't any more at this stage now how many missiles were fired by the u.s. or were they even missiles that we do not know yet that will be saturday morning in another briefing by the pentagon we'll get more details on that so we don't know how much or what exactly was fired into syria at these specific targets however in the question answer period secretary of defense mattis did say that it was more than double the amount of munitions that was used over the last strike last year and we know last year it was fifty nine tomahawk missiles that were fired into a military base in syria so while he would not give any specifics we can get some sort of indication it appears to be double the amount of munition right in this operation how does this differ i'm sorry go there so i gave i just wanted to

interrupt you so i was particularly interested in this the confliction dialogue when tell me because there is a kind of communication between them all the time and they were questioned when they asked of whether this was basically they were also whether the americans tipped off the russians as to what was what was coming ahead and he said that they used the deacon fictions and to clear the air space but they didn't know the russians of what was coming. that's right there's essentially a phone line between the pentagon and moscow that they can call each other and they do this almost every day sometimes multiple times during the day these two capitals and they say and this phone line essentially is meant to avoid any sort of unintended consequences of russian military assets in gauging with u.s. military assets unintentionally over syria now the u.s. did say that they did inform russia through this confliction method about air space that there would be some potential military aircraft in this is not

unusual though they would do this all the time they did not however according to the pentagon tipped off russia to any sort of targets these three targets in specifics that they planned to attack in conjunction with the u.k. and france so the pentagon basically saying yes we did keep the lines of communication open with russia but they had no warning to when we would attack or where we would attack ok gabriel live at the pentagon thank you very much indeed let's go back to. correspondent also in washington d.c. and i'll only hearing this being some reaction from the russians. exactly we're getting a reaction from members that anna torv who of course is the russian ambassador here in washington d.c. in esteem in this been issued just in the last few minutes he says that this was a pre designed scenario is being implemented again we are being threatened we

warned that such actions would not be left without consequences all responsibility for them rests with washington wonder and paris and we nor that james mattis the defense secretary was concerned he said it in capitol hill on thursday that any ear strikes would lead perhaps to exploring a further conflict and that is why he was at pains to see we took every action we could to try to avoid civilian and foreign casualties he made that specifically clear i think that was a message not just to the wider world but also to the russians but as you can see the russians not impressed with the events of the last few hours and seeing there will be consequences all right thank you for that well it's late at night in washington d.c. it's early morning in syria and us on a binge of aid is our correspondent in gaziantep that's in southern turkey very close to the border with syria and so this is the syrian state t.v. state media basically a calling this an aggression a flagrant violation of international law and suggesting that these airstrikes have

not been successful. well if the. goal of this was to get them into submission that seems to be not working the first reaction that you've seen from the syrian state t.v. is that of defiance there are state t.v. correspondents reporting from aleppo or from from other areas saying that the situation in is calm and attempts to save terrorists as the state media puts it will not succeed at this if we do has also confirmed that they have been attacked around damascus and also in homs where the military targets have been hit military devils have been hit not seeing that it is either the chemical weapons facilities that was explained by the pentagon officials there. that state media is saying that the situation in syria is normal it's trying to push

it's trying to show that image but what we've seen on the ground inside syria is that there was a lot of chaos inside the dick capital damascus when we saw air defense systems being utilized there were multiple videos that uses there were some facebook live streams that we saw from damascus which showed that there's been some damage on the ground around damascus there were a number of missiles that were fired state t.v. also saying that it was at least thirteen missiles had been shot down by air defense now the american general dunford and james mattis the defense had three they emphasize the fact that they had selected targets really not only because of that of their value with regard to the storage of chemical weapons or the production of chemical weapons but also their distance from civilians as far as you're aware do we know of any kind of civilian casualties as a consequence of these airstrikes. well so far there it's not been

clear. exactly what kind of civilian damage would have been caused because these facilities have been hit are away from civilian centers as was alluded to by the pentagon officials there but what we know for sure is that there is there are a number of places inside damascus because the from the pictures that we've been seeing emerging out of damascus is that a number of places have been targeted and it is a populated city and areas around damascus there are pockets of people living around there as well but so far we haven't had any indication of any civilian casualties as far as the question of how these facilities were targeted it was it's an open secret of where the facilities are for off the syrian government where not just chemical weapons but ordinary weapons and weapons depots are stationed around homs in damascus and two words aleppo these weapons that the syrian government has been using it's worth noting are not all of them it was. also said that

all of them are saturn like nerve agents or chemical weapons as we know them some of them have also been ordinary chemicals like chlorine for instance if used in concentrated amounts in very confined spaces it can prove to be lethal but the syrian state media again coming out in a defiant tone saying that this aggression will not succeed all right thank you to some of the correspondent there live in gas and type in southern turkey now we can speak to al-jazeera senior political analyst marwan bashar he's joining us now from london a surprise in the form that this intervention finally took. one . person trump did not leave us much room for surprise right i mean the whole boasting on twitter made it clear that cruise missiles where in the whole

reason and clearly the boasting and the reprimand when they were first reports of chemical attacks became clear that the western powers needed to respond to uphold the ban on the use of chemical weapons i think the bit about. the difference between this year and last year's attacks that it is more quantitative than qualitative meaning they simply doubled the amount of explosives if you will does not really bode well to how this operation will be different from last year's operation in terms of its. effect on the syrian regime's attitude moving forward and most about i mean earlier just before the strikes were underway we had the u.n. secretary general didn't we in the security council warning of

a new cold war and wounding of this spiraling out of control and involving so many of the other regional players in the syrian crisis and it seems very much at this stage that they might have avoided poking the russian bear or messing around with the radiance on the ground in syria. well at least in the immediate sense yes i mean me you know we'll see if the russians were bombed in this in this in this raid or not but you know it's really much it's really it goes further than that i mean the idea that the russians now the patrons of the syrian regime are sitting ducks in syria while three western powers attack the syrian regime i think that's a huge slap on the face across whether it is putin or you know his superpower status in the world and in the middle east because this

is the second time that america leads this kind of bombardment against a see a regime while it is a politician a ak a client protected by russia that into syria back in september two thousand and fifteen in order to save the assad regime to maintain the assad regime and to ensure the in durance of the assad regime but but morse more specifically to your question look i mean one thing to talk about chemical weapons but there are enough specks skeptics out there to tell you that the viability of this operation the legality of this operation and the motivation behind this. operation is not exactly chemical that there's a lot of lots of reasons one of them for example just like we've seen you know the likes of president clinton back in one nine hundred ninety eight when he attacked

afghanistan in the sudan because there was a more nickel lewinsky case today in the united states we have trump taking these actions when we have the stormy daniels case and and we have his lawyer being investigated and so on so forth in terms of the legality of course once again does he have the power act to act the way he did it was that sufficient in terms of the powers as. that was approved in congress back in in after nine eleven or not so there are many questions really what this is really being the overall in terms of what the syria regimes with russia and iran will do moving forward will they double down cracking down more expand their presence. carry even worse across it these against the syrians using conventional weapons we really don't know and. i'm just i'm thinking back throughout the morning we've been talking to

a variety of guests and many of them have made the point that is there's a certain him or ality when it comes to the intervention with regard to chemical weapons only rather than the rest of the atrocities that are being carried out almost on a daily basis by the syrian regime and their backers it must be said against the syrian people look absolutely the problem here is not you know specifically western or russian for that matter it is about the global system we live in and it is that capacity of. un security council member to veto any action by the international community to stop the regime from slaughtering its people. when. a president like bashar assad carries the kind of crimes against his people normally you would say according to at least the last ten fifteen years of. conventional wisdom that he lost all

protection all sovereignty because he's no longer sovereign when he carries war crimes against his people but when he has russia supporting him when he has that kind of a veto patronage in the un security council then he is protected under even international law if you will because the u.n. security council will no longer be able to carry any attack to protect the syrian people so all in all we do have a situation whereby western powers are entering the syrian free under the provision of upholding the ban on the use of chemical weapons but the reality is beyond international law as you as you were then like to use your word the ethics here are really question because how could a dictator in today's world seventy years after the second world war continue to carry the kind of atrocity atrocities against his own people as we've seen in syria

it is. you know a terrible insult or humanity. thank you very much indeed talking to us live from london. right let's go back to washington d.c. alan fischer our correspondent there how popular or unpopular will this move be with the american public now on is just suggested that this could be seen as being the action of a president a leader who's struggling a bit at home and therefore lights would like to distract attention by having some antics abroad. well certainly the american media over the last twenty four forty eight hours has spent very little time talking about the potential of an attack on syria when they have they have discussed donald trump's tweets from just twenty four hours ago or so when the russians said that they would shoot down any raw american missiles he said well america or new smart. clever missiles would be on the way to syria very soon we certainly foreshadowed this attack even though the

white house was seeing up until around lunchtime on friday that all options were still on the table donald trump will also be aware that when he ordered the air strikes just over a year ago his approval rating went up which was unusual at that time because it had been incredibly low and seventy one percent of the population in the united states supported donald trump in the action he was taking in syria certainly there's a bit more ambiguity to his motivation this time as it was pointed out during the briefing at the pentagon when the u.s. says they are taking action to try and detail by cheryl a sad because of the events of last saturday it was pointed out that the syrian regime has been thought to use chemical weapons on a number of occasions since the attack a year ago or so which provoked that assault and therefore it was interesting that this was happening no and many people of course in the movie wag the dog which for

those of you have never seen it is when the u.s. president decides to launch a foreign war to detract from some of the political problems he has at home and so they're suggesting that this won't do donald trump any harm there's also the whole notion that when america is at war when service men are thrown into action when there is some sort of conflict that involves the u.s. military america does tend to close ranks it gets behind its military it gets behind its president and it tries to pretoria a united front but as we've suggested there are a number of senators among them. senator tim kaine you may remember that name he's a democrat from virginia he also ran as hillary clinton's vice presidential candidate in the election in two thousand and sixteen he is saying that it's absolutely illegal and unconstitutional for donald trump to take this action he should have gone to congress for approval now if you go back to when barack obama was president and he talked about the potential of red lines and whether or not he

was going to carry any sort of airstrikes against syria at that point and we're talking some three four years ago he then deferred to congress and said i'll let congress make that decision and many people thought that was him abdicating his responsibility as president not going ahead with the red line that he had clearly drawn and should've taken some sort of action not left it to congress but congress at that point said they weren't going to authorize any airstrikes so donald trump has that in his armor he can see that he did something that barack obama was not prepared to do perhaps wasn't even brave enough to do and i suspect when it comes to republican talking points when we start to see senior republicans on american morning shows on saturday that will be one of the things that they will raise and very quickly and remind the senate the only reaction i think that we've had from russia said. exactly it came from the ambassador to the united states

he said that this was a pre-designed attack he said that. everyone was warned that if there were attacks like this then there would be consequences and he said the result of those consequences would be poor and the responsibility would be borne by washington london and paris making it very clear that although the airstrikes may be over and this military operation maybe it and then the middle east crisis that has been provoked by this certainly isn't all right alan fischer live in washington d.c. thank you very much indeed so time to remind you then of the events of the last couple of hours the u.s. has carried out strikes in conjunction with british and french forces on targets associated with syria's chemical weapons program it was in response to a suspected chemical attack on duma a week ago as he announced the strikes president trump described the alleged attack by the asset regime as the crime of a month. this man.