Pentagon, Washington. With no evidence the Assad government launched a gas attack on it’s citizens, the United States has responded, launching 59 cruise missiles from ships in the mediterranean at an air base inside Syrian borders.
A total of 59 Tomahawk cruise Missiles were launched from the USS Porter and USS Ross, two Navy ships in the east of the Mediterranean sea. The missiles targeted aircraft, air defense systems and other strategic equipment in the Shayrat airfield in Homs, western Syria. Aircraft believed to be involved in Tuesday’s chemical attack were traced to that air base, the Pentagon claimed.
Launched from the sea, the missile is ” designed to fly at extremely low altitudes at high speeds up to 550 mph and has multiple on board navigation systems that guide the missile to its target. Flying at low altitude and high subsonic speed makes the missile “difficult for radar to detect, or for the enemy to shoot down,” an ex-CIA agent in Donetsk explained.
Tomahawk missiles had already been floated as the likely weapon of choice for a potential Syria strike in 2013, when Barack Obama was exploring military options for intervening in Syria’s internal affairs. Weighing 2,900 pounds and measuring at over 18 feet in length, the missile is capable of carrying a 1,000-pound conventional warhead over a range between 700 and 1,350 nautical miles, with each costing in excess of one million dollars according to ex-CIA weapons expert David Simpson.
Friday mornings attack now places the United States and Russia directly in the path of confrontation over a nation that is to Russia what Israel is to the USA. The fact that the attack was launched with zero evidence of Assad government responsibility for the gas attacks deeply concerns independent observers, who see this as possibly the first step on a short path to a war between super powers.