Syria says US attack failed to hurt them
In Syria, the official statements riveted "the violation of international law" represented by the tripartite attack of the United States, France and the United Kingdom, while trying to downplay the damage suffered, by not affecting the Syrian military capacity, and praise the response of its anti-aircraft defense systems, without detailing the number of missiles intercepted.
The Syrian regime considers the US-led bombing "doomed to failure" in a flagrant violation of international law, according to a statement released by the SANA news agency and reproduced by state television. Official media have only reported material damage in Damascus, where the missiles have destroyed a research center located in the district of Barze, northeast Damascus. Three people are reported wounded in Homs due to the bombing. Strong explosions were heard around four in the morning (local time) in both cities, as stated by Spanish El País.
The attack also affected the air base of Al Shirai, located west of Damascus and near the border of Lebanon, according to what Syrian military sources told Reuters. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent NGO that has a network of informers, has assured that the incursion has affected a military research center and military bases in the periphery of Damascus, as well as Army installations in Homs where an armament research laboratory is located.
As some international media report, Syrian forces were on high alert since Thursday and had evacuated their main bases. They also claimed that they had moved military aircraft and equipment to safe areas, that is, to facilities controlled by Russian troops. "None of the cruise missiles fired by the US and its allies have entered the area of the Russian facilities of Tartus (naval base, northwest) and Hamenim (air, in the same region of Latakia) in Syria," according to an official statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense cited by the agency RIA Novosti. The same source said that the USA, France and the United Kingdom had fired 103 cruise missiles from warships and fighter jets, and that 71 of them had been intercepted by Syrian defensive systems.
The attack by the US and its allies has occurred a few hours before the planned start of the investigation of a team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in Duma, on the outskirts of Damascus, where rescue teams and health workers linked to the opposition denounced a week ago an attack with chemical weapons that resulted in dozens of deaths and hundreds of intoxicated. "The aggressor countries have anticipated the mission of the research team in Guta Oriental with the aim of hiding their lies," said another statement released by the SANA agency.
The regime assures that the chemical attack denounced in Duma was a "set-up" of the rebel groups that were then besieged in the city and that have already been evacuated after a pact of surrender. While the entire world is condemning the bombing, analysts considered it was quite thought not to mess with Russia so as to cause a more dangerous war.