The US has launched 59 cruise missiles into the airbase that Syria used to drop sarin nerve gas on its own citizens recently.

The US has launched 59 cruise missiles into the airbase that Syria used to drop sarin nerve gas on its own citizens recently. Tom Vanden Brook reports at USA TODAY,

President Trump ordered a cruise missile strike against Syria early Friday local time in retaliation for the chemical weapons attack that killed 86 people on Tuesday, according to the Pentagon.

The attack, the first conventional assault on another country ordered by Trump, comes a day after he declared that the chemical weapons assault had “crossed many, many lines,” including causing the deaths of 27 children.

The missiles, fired from a U.S. Navy vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, struck multiple sites, including the airfield where Syria based the warplanes used in the chemical attack, a Defense official said.

The attack essentially follows the plan that the Pentagon had set in September 2013, according to a senior Defense official not authorized to speak publicly about the operation. That plan was devised after President Obama had set a “red line” on the use of chemical weapons. Syrian President Bashar Assad had used the weapons that killed 1,400 civilians, but Obama did not order an attack. Instead, Assad agreed to turn over his stockpiles of chemical weapons, a pledge he obviously reneged on in light of Tuesday’s use of what experts believe was sarin gas on civilians.

...Any attack puts at risk the hundreds of U.S. special operations troops in eastern Syria who are advising local ground forces in their fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS. The concern, according to the official, is that Assad could order a counter strike, targeting the Americans. There is also the risk that the attack could kill Russian troops who have been supporting the Assad regime.

Read more here.

I guess the Democrats will not be able to accuse Trump of colluding with the Russians on this one!