ANSD : Syria says suspected US missiles fired at air base; Washington denies strike

SUN 24 - 11 - 2024

Date: Apr 9, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

Syria says suspected US missiles fired at air base; Washington denies strike

_Reuters
AMMAN: Syrian state TV said there were casualties in what it said was a suspected U.S. missile attack on a major air base in central Syria but the United States denied it had launched any air strikes against the country.

The state broadcaster earlier said explosions were heard at the T-4 airfield near Homs, which is close to the ancient city of Palmyra in central Syria.

A Syrian military source was quoted as saying air defenses shot down eight missiles fired at the base, where defense analysts say there are large deployments of Russian forces, and where jets fly regular sorties to strike rebel-held areas.

The state broadcaster said there were several dead and wounded.

"An aggression was perpetrated on T-4 air base in several strikes that is most likely to be an American attack," state television said in a news flash.

The U.S. Pentagon said it was not conducting air strikes in Syria "at this time," formally denying the Syrian state television report.

When asked about the explosions, an Israeli spokeswoman declined to comment.

Israel has struck Syrian army locations many times in the course of the conflict, hitting convoys and bases of Iranian-backed militias that fight alongside Syrian President Bashar al Assad's forces.

U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier on Sunday there would be a "big price to pay" after medical aid groups reported dozens of civilians, including many children and women, were killed by poison gas in a besieged rebel-held town.

The United States launched a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base a year ago in response to the killing of dozens of civilians in a sarin gas attack in an opposition-held town in northwest Syria. The gas attack was blamed on Assad.

The U.S. missile strike was against a Syrian air base which Washington said was used to launch the strike.

The Syrian state denied government forces had launched any chemical attack. Russia, President Bashar al-Assad’s most powerful ally, called the reports fake.

France did not bomb Syrian air base: French army

_{Agence France Presse}
PARIS: France did not carry out a missile strike on a Syrian government air base early Monday that reportedly killed several people, the French army said.

"It was not us," armed forces spokesman Colonel Patrik Steiger told AFP.

The U.S. also denied staging the strike.

Syrian state news agency SANA said the Tayfur air base was hit by "several missiles" that left a number of dead and wounded, without giving exact casualty numbers.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said "at least 14 fighters" were killed, including Iranian forces allied to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The assault came after the U.S. and France vowed a "strong, joint response" to a suspected chemical attack at the weekend that left dozens dead in Syria's rebel-held town of Douma.

In a phone call Sunday U.S. President Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron condemned the "horrific" attack and said the Assad regime "must be held accountable for its continued human rights abuses," according to the White House.

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