Last Friday, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France carried out a massive attack in Syria, launching over 100 missiles at military and civilian targets in the country. The attack was slammed by Damascus and Moscow, with the first calling it “barbaric” and the second slamming it as an act of aggression against a sovereign state.
“There was no request for Germany’s involvement in the military action,” a spokesman for the German government Steffen Seibert said Monday.
Seibert went on to say that Berlin’s position on the issue was generally evident with Germany supporting those “who was outraged by yet another use of chemical weapons by the regime” of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The joint missile strikes on a number of targets in Syria were conducted in response to the alleged chemical incident in the city of Douma. According to the Russian military, over 100 cruise and air-to-surface missiles were launched, 71 of which were shot down by the Syrian air defense systems.
The Western attack has been criticized by a number of countries, including Syria itself, Russia and Iran among others. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the strikes had been carried out in violation of norms and principles of the international law.
The use of chemical weapons in Douma has been blamed by Western states on Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Syrian leadership denied any involvement in the attack and invited the experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to investigate the reports.