New air raids target city hit in gas attack

BEIRUT -- Warplanes on Saturday struck the Syrian town where a chemical attack killed scores of people last week, as Turkey warned that a retaliatory U.S. missile strike on a Syrian air base only would be "cosmetic" if greater efforts are not made to remove President Bashar Assad from power.

The airstrikes on the opposition-held northern town of Khan Sheikhoun, where more than 80 people were killed in the chemical attack last week, killed a woman and wounded her son, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, an activist collective.

Elsewhere in Syria, U.S.-led airstrikes killed at least 21 people.

Activists opposed to the Islamic State extremist group said a U.S.-led coalition airstrike hit a boat carrying civilians fleeing across the Euphrates River near the Islamic State's self-styled capital, Raqqa, the target of an offensive by U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian forces.

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The groups, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently and Sound and Picture, said the attack killed a woman and her six children.

Activists and state media outlets said a separate airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition on the northern Islamic State-held village of Hneida killed at least 14 civilians, including children. The Observatory said 15 people, including four children, were killed in the airstrike. The Sound and Picture group said the airstrike hit an Internet cafe, killing 14 people. The conflicting death tolls could not immediately be reconciled.

Elsewhere, an airstrike on a rebel-held town in the northern Idlib province killed at least 18 people, including women and children, according to the Observatory and Ariha Today, an activist group. And near the central city of Homs, a bomb exploded aboard a bus carrying workers, killing a woman and wounding more than 20 other people, according to state TV and the Observatory. It was unclear who carried out those two attacks.

There also were reports of Syrian government and Russian airstrikes across the provinces of Damascus, Aleppo, Idlib and Daraa, all killing civilians. However, there were no reports of further use of chemical weapons.

"The American strikes did nothing for us. They can still commit massacres at any time," said Majed Khattab, speaking by phone from Khan Sheikhoun. "No one here can sleep properly; people are really afraid."

The chemical attack prompted the U.S. to launch nearly 60 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian air base early Friday, killing nine people and marking the first time Washington has directly targeted Syrian government forces since the war began in 2011.

President Donald Trump on Saturday stood by the attack, praising the U.S. military and striking back at mounting questions over whether it would help achieve a momentum shift in the Syrian civil war.

In an afternoon tweet, Trump defended the operation against criticism from some members of Congress and military analysts that the nighttime volley did not target the runways at the Shayrat air base in Syria.

Administration officials have said the attack destroyed refueling stations, hangars and some planes, effectively making the base inoperable.

"The reason you don't generally hit runways is that they are easy and inexpensive to quickly fix (fill in and top)!" Trump wrote on Twitter from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.

In an earlier message, Trump offered, "Congratulations to our great military men and women for representing the United States, and the world, so well in the Syria attack."

The attack was welcomed by the Syrian opposition and its main backers, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but harshly condemned by Russia and Iran, who back Assad and said striking his forces would complicate the struggle against extremist groups.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the U.S. strike should be the start of a renewed effort to end the civil war, which has killed an estimated 400,000 people and displaced half of Syria's population.

"If this intervention is limited only to an air base, if it does not continue and if we don't remove the regime from heading Syria, then this would remain a cosmetic intervention," he said.

He said the best outcome would be a peace agreement that leads to a transitional government accepted by all Syrians, followed by elections in which all Syrians, including those living abroad, could vote for new leadership. For that to happen, he said, "this oppressive Assad needs to go."

Iran, which has provided crucial military and political support to Assad, meanwhile called for a fact-finding mission to determine what caused the chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun. State television quoted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as saying the committee should be impartial and "must not be headed by Americans."

Rouhani said "neutral countries should come and assess to make it clear where the chemical weapons came from."

Syria's government has denied carrying out any chemical attack, and Russia's Defense Ministry said the toxic agents were released when a Syrian airstrike hit a rebel chemical-weapons arsenal and munitions factory.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson canceled a planned trip to Russia because of the events in Syria. Johnson said the situation in Syria had changed "fundamentally" after the chemical attack and the U.S. response.

Johnson condemned Russia's continued defense of Assad "even after the chemical-weapons attack on innocent civilians."

He had planned to travel Monday to Russia on a trip intended to start a fresh dialogue with Moscow.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to meet with G-7 foreign ministers in Europe this week before going on to Moscow. Johnson said Tillerson will be able to give a "clear and coordinated message to the Russians."

Tillerson, in his Moscow visit, will become the first member of Trump's Cabinet to visit Russia. He said he sees no reason for retaliation from Russia for the U.S. missile strikes.

Russia maintains a close political and military alliance with the Assad government and has been implicated in many of the attacks against Syrians opposed to Assad's rule, though Moscow adamantly denies such claims.

In an interview to air today on CBS' Face the Nation, Tillerson said Russians were not targeted by the strikes. He also said the top U.S. priority in the region hasn't changed and remained the defeat of Islamic State militants.

In Damascus, dozens of Syrian students gathered outside the offices of the United Nations to protest the U.S. missile attack, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."

In Saudi Arabia, the official Saudi Press Agency reported that Trump had spoken by telephone with King Salman about the U.S. missile strike on Syria.

The news agency reported that during the Friday phone call, the Saudi monarch congratulated Trump for his "courageous decision."

The kingdom is among the most vehement opponents of Assad and supports Sunni rebel groups fighting to oust him. The Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia are in a power struggle for regional dominance with Iran's Shiite government.

In Florida with the president, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said additional economic sanctions on Syria were being prepared.

Information for this article was contributed by Bassem Mroue, Julie Pace, Aya Batrawy, Zeynep Bilginsoy and Albert Aji of The Associated Press and by Louisa Loveluck, David Nakamura, Zakaria Zakaria, Griff Witte and Loveday Morris of The Washington Post.

A Section on 04/09/2017