US' retaliation strike on Syria nets int'l support

U.S. forces fired a barrage of cruise missiles at a Syrian air base on April 7 in response to a suspected chemical attack earlier in the week, with U.S. allies rallying around Washington after the strike. 

U.S. officials said 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from Navy ships in the Mediterranean at the Shayrat airfield at 3:40 a.m. (12:40 a.m. GMT), dealing heavy damage to the base from where Washington believes the April 4 deadly attack was launched.

Syrian state news agency SANA said nine civilians, including four children, were killed in villages near the base.

The strike - the first direct U.S. action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and U.S. President Donald Trump's biggest military decision since taking office - marked a dramatic escalation in U.S. involvement in Syria's six-year civil war.

It followed days of outrage at images of dead children and victims suffering convulsions from the suspected sarin gas attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun. 

Trump announced the strike in a brief televised address delivered hours after the U.N. Security Council failed to agree on a probe into the suspected chemical attack.

"Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end this slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types," Trump said.

Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey all supported Washington, with Ankara also calling for a no-fly zone in Syria.

France and Germany will continue efforts through the United Nations to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis, French President Francois Hollande said in a statement on April 7 after telephone talks with German Chancellor...