As the world waits the official reaction from the Kremlin to the United States attack on Russia’s ally, reaction has been swift from inside and outside #Syria. The shock of the images of the children killed by gas weapons on the anti government stronghold of Khan Skeikhoum in Iblid province by the Bashar Al-Assad regime is now being replaced at worry and speculation at the consequences of the military action ordered by united states president #Donald Trump .
Syria
The first reactions from within the country wracked by a civil war against the Al-Assad Dictatorship are naturally mixed.
The governor of Homs province in which the airbase is situated, Talal Barazi, told Reuters that the human cost of the attack was limited but that the base was devastated. Furthermore, in a statement on Syrian state television that no doubt repeated what will be the official government line, Talal further stated that the attack was “support for armed terrorist groups, and it is an attempt to weaken the capabilities of the Syrian Army to combat terrorism.”
The words closely reflect the phrases used by American president Donald Trump to justify his attempted ban on Moslem immigration from “at risk” countries in the Middle East, including the Syria.
According to the British based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted by Reuters four soldiers were killed in the attack and the airbase was almost completely destroyed.
At the time of writing the official response from Dictator Bashar Al-Assad has not been released.
In the other hand Reuters also reports the reaction of a major opposition group in Syria, the Syrian National Coalition that welcomed the American strikes at the Syrian air base and expressed hopes that the strike would not be one off and they will continue “to stop Syrian government air strikes and use of internationally banned weapons”.
Moscow
At the same time as we await the reaction from the Syrian Dictator, the world is even more interested in the reaction from Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Russia is an ally of Syria and last year President Putin sent a Russian military force to that country on a mission against anti government rebels.
The only comment to so far come from Moscow was by Viktor Ozerov, the head of the Russian parliament’s Defence and Security committed who said, according to Reuters, that “this (the attack) could be used as an attack of the U.S.
Against a U.N. nation” and then proceeded to say that Russia will request an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on the matter.
In anticipation of the official Kremlin statement on the American missile attack Reuters also reported the service by Iran’s Students’ News Agency INSA that quoted a foreign ministry spokesman that “Iran strongly condemns such unilateral strikes...such actions will strengthen terrorists in Syria and the region.”
So far no official statements have yet come from America’s allies who are probably also waiting for the official statement from Vladimir Putin.
The Florida Summit between United States President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jiping will now be even more the centre of the world’s attention as the Middle East will now play a more important role in the meeting than previously expected.
