Free Republic

Sen. Mike Lee issued a statement Monday criticizing the Trump administration for not seeking congressional authority before launching airstrikes in Syria. “No President of the United States, no matter party or political ideology, has the authority to unilaterally start a war. While the president has the authority under the War Powers Act to respond when the U.S. is under attack or in imminent danger, such circumstances did not exist with regard to Syria,” Mr. Lee, Utah Republican, tweeted.

When President Donald Trump threatened to send missiles at Syria — despite Russia's promises to counter-attack— all eyes turned towards the US Navy's sole destroyer in the region. But that may have been a trick. Pundits openly scoffed at Trump's announcement of the strike days in advance, especially considering his criticism of Barack Obama for similar talk, but the actual strike appeared to go down well. In April 2017, two US Navy destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean steamed into the region, let off 59 cruise missiles in response to suspected gas attacks by the Syrian government, and left unpunished and...

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan welcomed U.S., British and French forces’ airstrikes on Syria, saying that the operation sent a message to Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad. “With the joint operation by U.S., U.K. and France on Saturday, the Syrian regime received the message that its massacres wouldn’t be left unanswered,” Erdogan told his ruling AK Party supporters in an Istanbul meeting. “The innocent Syrian people should have been defended long ago,” Erdogan added.

Pence also said. “It’s time for Russia to get the message President Trump delivered last night. You're known by the company you keep.” He also said the United State will mount a “sustained effort” against the regime if the attacks continue, echoing what U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said in an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday. Pence also said leaders at the summit, which is focused on the collapse of democracy in Venezuela, saoid they support the missile strikes in Syria.

The coalition hit the Barzah Research and Development Center outside Damascus with 76 missiles, destroying the facility... The second and third targets were part of what the U.S. military described as the Him Shinshar chemical weapons complex outside the city of Homs. The military said the strikes “completely destroyed” the complex’s chemical weapons storage facility and “successfully hit and sustained damage” to the installation’s chemical weapons bunker.

US will strike Syria

Is Russia negotiating missile strikes as a method of appeasing Donald Trump? The Washington Post reports that Russia has shifted gears from confrontation to mitigation with the US after assisting Bashar al-Assad’s capture of the rebel stronghold Douma. At first, Moscow threatened a military conflict if Trump followed through on his threat to punish Assad for yet another use of chemical weapons that Russia had guaranteed were destroyed: Russian officials on Thursday sought to tamp down public fears of a looming conflict with the United States, even as Syrian government forces took control of the town where they are...

A Russian newspaper reports that President Donald Trump is planning to tip off Russia's military before launching any attacks. The US tries hard to avoid killing Russians in Syria, despite the president's recent hostile rhetoric toward Moscow. Russia is Syria's ally but does not approve of all of its behavior. Moscow seems willing to let the US hit some Syrian targets as punishment for suspected chemical weapons use.

BEIRUT, LEBANON (1:20 P.M.) – The Russian Aerospace Forces conducted several airstrikes over the northern countryside of Hama, yesterday, following an attack by the jihadist rebels on a Syrian Christian town. Russian jets flying out of the Hmaymim Military Airport reportedly launched over 15 airstrikes over the northern Hama towns of Kafr Zia, Zakat, Lataminah, and Latmin, a military source told Al-Masdar News. Prior to the retaliatory strikes, the jihadist rebels launched several artillery shells towards the Syrian Christian town of Mhardeh, which agitated the Russians because they currently have forces there. Below is a video from a pro-opposition channel...

Britain would consider joining US military strikes against the Syrian government if there is evidence chemical weapons are being used against civilians, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Tuesday. Johnson said he hoped Britain and other Western nations would not stand by in the event of a chemical attack, voicing support for limited strikes if there is "incontrovertible evidence" of the Syrian's government involvement. "If we know that it has happened, and we can demonstrate it, and if there is a proposal for action where the UK could be useful then I think we should seriously consider it," Johnson told...

F-16 jet was shot down on Saturday over northern Israel, prompting retaliation Israeli forces launched a series of bombardments against bases in Syria But Benjamin Netanyahu backed down after a call from Putin, it is reported Putin warned him against escalating the conflict in the region after Russia has spent years propping up the Assad regime Vladimir Putin warned Benjamin Netanyahu to back off from military strikes in Syria after an Israeli warplane was shot down in the region on Saturday. The Russian President told Netanyahu in a phone call on Saturday evening to avoid a course of action that...

In the last half of last year, U.S. armed forces under President Donald Trump’s direction launched 2,000 air strikes against Taliban targets in Afghanistan. That constitutes more raids than in all of 2015 and 2016 combined, the last two years under President Barack Obama’s command. “The huge spike in airstrikes is the product of new rules of engagement, adopted as part of a strategy that President Trump announced in August,” reports the Washington Post. “U.S. forces can now strike Taliban targets at will, whereas under the Obama administration they were restricted to defending Afghan forces under imminent attack.” Like the...

Turkey opened a new front in Syria's nearly seven-year-old war on Saturday, launching airstrikes against a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in Afrin province that raise the prospect of a further strain on relations between Ankara and Washington.The operation, dubbed "Operation Olive Branch" by Ankara, pits Turkey against Kurdish fighters allied to the United States at a time when ties between Turkey and Washington - NATO allies and members of the coalition against Islamic State - appear dangerously close to a breaking point.The strikes on the Syrian-Kurdish YPG militia hit some 108 targets, the Turkish military said. On land, the Turkey-backed Free...

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis gave a full-throated defense Friday of U.S. efforts to prevent civilian casualties in the conflict in Yemen, making the case that without American involvement, there would be more. Mattis, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, said that “it’s a tragedy every time” a civilian dies, but that the United States is held to a high standard when it comes to preventing civilian fatalities. “We are being held to a standard – ‘we’ being us and anyone associated with us – that has never been achieved before in warfare,” he said. The comments came after two separate...

The US military and Afghan Air Force hit a Taliban command and control center and seven “drug labs” in what the Coalition described as “previously untargeted safe havens in south and southwest” Afghanistan. With a shift in strategy, strikes such as these will become the new normal, the top US commander in Afghanistan said.The coordinated airstrikes took place over the last day in three Taliban controlled or contested districts in northern Helmand province: Musa Qala (four strikes), Kajaki (three), and Sangin (one). Musa Qala and Sangin are controlled by the Taliban, while Kajaki is hotly contested, according to ongoing...

The Islamic State just lost its capital at Raqqa and with it the last of the terrorist group's fantasies of establishing a Middle East caliphate. In recent years, ISIS has horrified global audiences with video clips of unspeakable atrocities. What sort of humans could behead, incinerate, drown, torture and blow up innocent civilians, mock and record such horror, and then narrate their macabre videos for a world audience? How could such pre-modern psychopaths ever be defeated, given that in a matter of months ISIS had managed to overrun vast swaths of Iraq and Syria? The zealotry of the Islamic State...

A Russian airstrike has killed around 40 Islamic State fighters, including four senior commanders, near the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor, Russia’s defense ministry said Friday. The strike, carried out by Su-34 fighter-bombers and Su-35 fighters, came after an intelligence report Sept. 5 showed that top Islamic State commanders were meeting at a secret underground command post in the vicinity of Deir al-Zor, the ministry said on its Facebook page.

Operations are ceased as a ‘precautionary measure’ says American ally’s defense ministry Australia has suspended air operations in Syria amid escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow after Russia threatened to track American and coalition aircraft in the war-torn country as targets. “As a precautionary measure, Australian Defense Force strike operations into Syria have temporarily ceased,” a statement from the Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The American ally’s decision to back out of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Syria comes hours after the U.S. shifted some of its own flight patterns in the country to minimize risks, following Russia’s warning on Monday that...

Intensified coalition air strikes have killed at least 300 civilians in the Syrian northern city of Raqqa since March, as U.S.-backed forces close in on the stronghold of Islamic State forces, U.N. war crimes investigators said on Wednesday. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias supported by a U.S.-led coalition, began to attack Raqqa a week ago to take it from the jihadists. The SDF, supported by heavy coalition air strikes, have taken territory to the west, east and north of the city. "Coalition air strikes have intensified around the city," said Paulo Pinheiro, chairman...

Egyptian fighter jets have struck militant camps following the deadly attack on Egypt’s Coptic Christians, President Abdel Fattah Sisi has announced. The strikes were carried out in eastern Libya, state television said.Egypt’s president also vowed to continue striking bases used to train militants and who carry out terrorist attacks in his country, regardless of the camps' location.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV4jfKiaSsk