The U.S. military launched its first direct attack at the Syrian government on Thursday, marking an escalation of American involvement in the country’s six-year civil war.
After two days of deliberation, President Donald Trump authorized the military to launch approximately 50 cruise missiles at Shayrat Air Base, The Washington Post reported Thursday night. The move was conducted in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday, allegedly carried out by President Bashar Assad’s regime. The chemical weapon attack killed at least 70 people, a U.S. official told Reuters.
The strike was in the “vital national security interest” of the United States, Trump said Thursday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, a direct contradiction of his earlier position that the U.S. should avoid further entanglement in Syria. He called on “civilized nations” to join the U.S. “in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria.”
The decision to use cruise missiles allowed the U.S. to strike targets without putting piloted aircraft in danger in Syrian airspace, a U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday before attack was carried out.
“There are no current plans for additional strikes, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC. Schiff was briefed Thursday night by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
While the Syrian government has denied responsibility for this week’s chemical attack, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday the Trump administration had “no doubt” that the regime controlled by Assad was behind it. When asked by The New York Times if the U.S. would support efforts to remove Assad from power, Tillerson said “those steps are underway” ― a stark departure from the administration’s previous position.
Trump, meanwhile, said Thursday that “something should happen” in response to the attack, but he did not explicitly call for Assad’s removal.
“I think what Assad did is terrible,” Trump told reporters.
“I think what happened in Syria is a disgrace to humanity, and he’s there, and I guess he’s running things, so something should happen.”
Trump’s decision to intervene militarily in Syria is a stark departure from his campaign promise to work with Russia, Assad’s main backer, to fight the Islamic State and negotiate an end to the civil war in Syria. Although the Assad regime has been accused of carrying out several chemical weapon attacks throughout the war, photos of the victims of the most recent attack, including many children, appeared to alter Trump’s position on the U.S. role in the conflict.
It is not clear what ― if any ― legal authority Trump is claiming to strike the Assad regime. The U.S. has claimed authority to bomb ISIS in Syria under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force by claiming that ISIS is an offshoot of al Qaeda. But there is no war authorization from Congress that could be interpreted to allow military action against the Syrian government, nor can the U.S. claim it is defending itself. When former President Barack Obama considered a similar retaliatory strike against the Assad regime in 2013, he made it clear he would first seek approval from Congress.
The U.S.’ unilateral strike against the Assad regime will undoubtedly spark tension with Russia. Moscow has supported Syria both politically and militarily for years and launched an air campaign to support Assad in September 2015.
A defense official told Foreign Policy that the U.S. notified Russians who were stationed at the base before the attack took place.
While Trump staunchly opposed intervention in Syria in the past years, and even tried to bar Syrian refugees from entering the U.S., the president appeared to reverse course this week.
Since the start of the conflict in March 2011, more than 207,000 civilians have died in the fighting, including 24,000 children. A sarin gas attack by the Syrian army on the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta in 2013 left more than 1,000 people dead, and human rights organizations have documented several smaller chemical attack since then.
U.S. policy in Syria has for years primarily focused on attacking the self-described Islamic State (also called ISIS) and offering military support to Kurdish militias that are taking territory away from the extremist group. Hundreds of U.S. troops are currently in Syria to support an upcoming advance on the ISIS-held city of Raqqa. Last month, The Washington Post reported that the U.S. would deploy up to 1,000 more troops in northern Syria.
Prior to the attack, the Trump White House had effectively abandoned the goal of removing Assad from power. But the use of chemical weapons against civilians shifted Trump’s attitude on U.S. policy, the president said Wednesday.
“That attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me. Big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing,” he said. “And I’ve been watching it and seeing it, and it doesn’t get any worse than that. And I have that flexibility, and it’s very, very possible, and I will tell you, it’s already happened, that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much.”
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
So we know that Android Wear 2.0 has been slowly making its way to Android Wear devices, although recently there was a bit of a hold up due to a bug that Google discovered at the last minute. That being said if you own an LG Android Wear device, you’ll be pleased to learn that the update is making its way to them as we speak.
, meaning that after a set period of time, these notifications will disappear/self-destruct. For example if you receive a notification about an upcoming event but you did not check it until the next day, there really is no point in the notification still being there, right?
Lenovo launched the Yoga Book 
Given that Twitter contains mostly text with several images and images thrown in, in terms of data consumption it wouldn’t be quite as intensive compared to Facebook or Instagram. However we guess for those of us living in countries where internet is fast and freely available and sometimes unlimited, we don’t really give this too much thought.
Easter is nearly upon us, and with it comes some expected items — annoying plastic grass, a last-minute snowstorm, and lots and lots of eggs. Boiled eggs. Colored eggs. Plastic eggs, real eggs. No matter which version you use, they’ll probably be cute and colorful and maybe full of candy. It’s all quite saccharine sweet, one might say. Why not … 
Those in the market for a dedicated digital camera have a new option: the Canon PowerShot SX730 HS. This compact camera brings with it some advanced features, such as hinged, tilting LCD display and 40x optical zoom, as well as 20.3-megapixel CMOS sensor and WiFi connectivity. Sony plans to release the camera this upcoming summer, and it’ll be priced at … 
