USA launches first attack on Syrian government forces.
The United States launched a military strike Thursday on a Syrian government target in response to their chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians earlier in the week.
On President Donald Trump's orders, US warships launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian government airbase where the warplanes that carried out the chemical attacks were based, US officials said.
The strike is the first direct military action the US has taken against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country's six-year civil war and represents a substantial escalation of the US military campaign in the region, which could be interpreted by the Syrian government as an act of war.
Six people were killed in the airstrike, according to a televised statement by the Syrian's Armed Forces General Command.
The Governor of Homs Talal al-Barzai tells Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen news channel that five people were killed and seven wounded in the missile strike, and that civilians living in the village neighboring the base were among the casualties, according to reporting by Russia's state-run RIA news agency.
Additionally, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that four Syrian regime officers were killed in the strike on the Shayrat Airbase in Homs province on Friday. According to SOHR Director Rami Abdulrahman, two sources from inside the airbase including a regime officer confirmed the fatalities.
"Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike on the air field in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched," Trump said during short remarks to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, where he ordered the strike just hours earlier. "It is in this vital national security of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons."
He added: "There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council. Years of previous attempts at changing Assad's behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically."
Following the attack – Gold and Oil prices rose. Unstable events in the world usually support safe haven assets such as Gold and JPY.
