The Pentagon’s play-by-play of the Syria strikes (Time Line)

[Boats]

The Pentagon’s play-by-play of the Syria strikes (Time Line)
By Aaron Mehta 4-7-17
RE: http://www.defensenews.com/articles/...ck-us-response

WASHINGTON -- President Trump’s decision to launch Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian air base was the culmination of 48 hours of activity, one that began with what the U.S. believes was a chemical warfare attack on civilians perpetrated by the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Two senior defense officials briefed reporters Friday at the Pentagon about details of the strikes, in the process laying out their best understanding of the timeline from the April 4 th chemical weapons attack at to the decision last night to launch high-end weapons at Shyrat airfield.

April 4

6:50 a.m. local time — A Syrian fixed-wing aircraft, most likely a Su-22 launched from Shyrat airfield, drops a munition that strikes in the middle of a street at Kahn Sheikoum. “We know the routes that these aircraft took. We know that these aircraft were overhead at the time of the attack,” the first Pentagon official said.

Subsequent analysis of the crater caused by the missile would show “staining” around the explosion site, in line with the signs of a chemical warhead. Despite early claims from Russia and Syria that the chemical attack were caused by an explosion at a chemical weapons factory being maintained by anti-Assad rebel groups, the Pentagon official said the crater evidence shoots that option down.

7:00 a.m. local time — Intelligence shows the first “reflections” of the potential use of a nerve agent, which include causalities arriving at a local hospital. Shortly afterwards, a small unmanned system -- “either regime or Russian” -- flies over the hospital, gathering intelligence at the scene before departing. “About five hours” after it was first spotted, the UAV returns, and shortly thereafter the hospital is struck by a fixed-wing aircraft.

“We don’t have positive accountability yet, but [why] somebody would strike the hospital, potentially to hide the evidence of a chemical attack about 5 hours after it was clearly seen that was a hospital with ambulances and civilian traffic, is a question that we’re very interested in,” the first official said.

April 5

President Trump directs Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to come up with military options to respond to the chemical attacks.

According to the second defense official, “those options were basically put together into recommendations. It went forward to the National Security Council, multiple meetings with not only the presidential senior advisers but also the Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs], the Vice Chairman and the Secretary of Defense.”

April 6

Final proposals for action are presented to the president, with the final selection made sometime in the afternoon.

4:30 p.m. EST — The Pentagon receives orders from Trump to execute the plan.

7:40 p.m. EST — The USS Porter and USS Ross combine to launch 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Shyrat airbase. One of those weapons fails to launch, requiring the Navy to launch a replacement; while heading to the target, one of the missiles fails and ditches into the water.

What was targeted

Syrian military assets: Fuel, hardened bunkers, munitions and a Russian-made surface-to-air missile system were targeted by the strikes.

Syrian planes: The Pentagon believes around 20 Syrian aircraft were destroyed, though it is hard to say exactly how many were taken out, as some planes were inside bunkers that were destroyed.

Asked to assess how losing those planes would degrade Assad’s military, the official declined to offer a figure but noted that “20 aircraft out of their inventory is going to make an impact.”

What wasn’t

Chemical warfare bunkers: The Pentagon was careful to avoid hitting anything they believed to be storage for chemical warfare materials, in order to not unleash those weapons.

The runway: Shyrat has a 10,000 foot runway, but that wasn’t targeted in the strike. Asked why, the officials said that didn’t fit into the “proportionality” they were going for, and noted that, as they were using Tomahawks, “it would have been a waste off a munition on the airfield.”

Russia: The Pentagon believes there are up to 100 Russian personnel on the base, and the mission plan was created specifically so the strikes would not target Russian citizens or assets. Ahead of the strikes, Russia was warned the Tomahawks were incoming, so they would not “read the attack” wrong, the second official said.

During the briefing, the officials were careful not to formally link Russia to the chemical weapons attack. But in both tone and their statements, the officials acknowledged that if there was an active chemical weapons storage unit at the airbase, the Russians would likely have known about it. They also would not rule out that the Russians played a part in the hospital bombing.

“We know the Russians have chemical expertise in country. We cannot talk openly about any complicity between the Russian and the Syrian regime in this case, but we’re carefully assessing any information that would implicate the Russians knew or assisted in this Syrian capability,” the first official said.

“We have no knowledge of Russian involvement in this attack. But we will investigate any information that might lead us in that direction. We’re not done.”

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The Pentagon just released video of the US attack on Syria
RE: http://www.vox.com/world/2017/4/6/15...e-attack-video

(Video's on site only)

The US officially launched a strike on Syria on Thursday night, just days after the Syrian regime launched a chemical weapon attack on that country’s civilians. We now have video of that strike.

Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesperson, gave the following statement with the video:

At the direction of the president, U.S. forces conducted a cruise missile strike against a Syrian Air Force airfield today at about 8:40 p.m. EDT (4:40 a.m., April 7, in Syria). The strike targeted Shayrat Airfield in Homs governorate, and were in response to the Syrian government's chemical weapons attack April 4 in Khan Sheikhoun, which killed and injured hundreds of innocent Syrian people, including women and children.

The strike was conducted using Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) launched from the destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. A total of 59 TLAMs targeted aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars. As always, the U.S. took extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties and to comply with the Law of Armed Conflict. Every precaution was taken to execute this strike with minimal risk to personnel at the airfield.

The strike was a proportional response to Assad's heinous act. Shayrat Airfield was used to store chemical weapons and Syrian air forces. The U.S. intelligence community assesses that aircraft from Shayrat conducted the chemical weapons attack on April 4. The strike was intended to deter the regime from using chemical weapons again.

Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line. U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield.

We are assessing the results of the strike. Initial indications are that this strike has severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment at Shayrat Airfield, reducing the Syrian Government's ability to deliver chemical weapons. The use of chemical weapons against innocent people will not be tolerated.

Until just recently, President Trump himself was opposed to attacking Syria — arguing that such a strike would require congressional approval, which Trump did not get for this attack.

As my colleague Zack Beauchamp pointed out, there’s also concerns this strike will lead to “mission creep” in which the US is pulled further and further into yet another long war in the Middle East, similar to quagmires in Iraq and other parts of the world.

Trump, however, seemed to change his mind after the chemical weapon attack. And now the US has officially attacked the Syrian government.