Russia vows to fight fire with fire: US launch sites to be bombed if Trump strikes Syria

VLADIMIR Putin’s envoy has vowed Russia will retaliate if Donald Trump orders a US missile strike on Syria as the ambassador issued a chilling warning that US launch sites will be bombed.
Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon said any US missiles fired at Syria would be shot down and the launch sites targeted.
Alexander Zasypkin, in the comments broadcast on Tuesday evening, said he was referring to a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian chief of staff.

He told Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV: “If there is a strike by the Americans then… the missiles will be downed and even the sources from which the missiles were fired.”

Earlier several reports claimed US coalition aircraft were spotted flying over Iraq and Jordan, heading towards Syria.

And a KC-767 re-fuelling aircraft has entered Jordan from Saudi Arabia, according to local sources.
On Monday Donald Trump threatened imminent military action against Syria and Russia as he added that “nothing is off the table” over the “atrocious” poison gas attack that killed at least 60 civilians in the besieged rebel enclave of Douma, near Damascus.

The US President said military chiefs were still investigating who was responsible.

He said: “We’ll be making that decision very quickly, probably by the end of the day. We cannot allow atrocities like that. Nothing is off the table.”

Speaking at the White House, he said Mr Putin “may” bear responsibility, “and if he does it’s going to be very tough…Everybody’s going to pay a price. He will. Everybody will. If it’s Russia, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them, we’ll figure it out.”

Russia and Iran are the main backers of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad whose ruthless seven-year war against his own people is supported by Russian warplanes.
Russia and the US blocked attempts by each other in the UN Security Council on Tuesday to set up international investigations into chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

And now the US and its allies, including the UK, are considering whether to hit Syria over a suspected poison gas attack that medical relief organisations say killed dozens of people in the rebel-held town of Douma near Damascus on Saturday.

Mr Trump’s chilling warning to Syria and Russia was echoed by Fox News’ senior national security analyst Walid Phares yesterday.

Mr Phares said: “Well look, the Russians are today stronger in Syria than they were a year ago and certainly six years ago.
“So they are trying to say to us and our partners that there will be a response maybe directly by the Russians or as they do usually, task the Iranians to do it.



“For us, for the United States, it is very important that we begin with the right thing to do and ask the intelligence community to have a detailed report of these chemical attacks so that we can take it to the UN Security Council and then confront the world and tell them ‘it did happen.’

“I expect that the Russians are going to have a veto. Once you have that veto from the Russians then you have the legitimacy to form this international coalition and start having US-led strategies.

“We don’t want to engage the Russians directly because by the rules of engagement of any nation that have military, if you attack their military they are going to respond.
“If you attack their allies, the Syrian regime or the Iranians or Hezbollah, what they may do is ask their allies to attack our allies.”

This time last year, the US fired 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base used to launch a sarin attack on a rebel area that killed 89 people, including 33 children.

Following last year’s strike Mr Putin blasted the US President’s response as an act of “aggression against a sovereign nation”.

Dmitry Peskov also insisted that “the Syrian army doesn’t have chemical weapons,” saying this had been “observed and confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a special UN unit”.

Source:www.express.co.uk