US Launches Missiles Into Syrian Airbase

Sharply escalating the US military role in Syria, two US warships fired dozens of cruise missiles from the eastern Mediterranean Sea against the airbase controlled by Assad's forces in response to the poison gas attack this week in a rebel-held area, US officials said.

Meaanwhile report from the Kremlin has said the air strikes were carried out on "invented pretext" and do significant damage to US - Russia ties.

The US strike was "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law", the Kremlin said.

"President Putin considers the American strikes against Syria an aggression against a sovereign government in violations of the norms of international law, and under a far-fetched pretext," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"This step by Washington is causing significant damage to Russian-American relations, which are already in a deplorable state."

He said the Russian president considered the attack and attempt to distract attention from the heavy civilian casualties caused by the U.S.-backed offensive to capture Mosul, Iraq from the Islamic State group.

"This step is not taking us any closer to the final goal in the fight against international terrorism, but, on the contrary, it is creating a serious obstacle to the establishment of an international coalition to combat it and efficiently counter this global evil," Peskov said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday statement that Moscow was suspending a memorandum with the U.S. to prevent incidents and ensure flight safety.

Under the memorandum, signed after Russia launched an air campaign in Syria in September 2015, Russia and the US had exchanged information about their flights to avoid incidents in the crowded skies over Syria.

The Russian Defence Ministry said Syrian air defences would be beefed up after US cruise missiles struck an air base in western Syria, Russian news agencies reported.

The ministry mocked the effectiveness of the US strikes as "extremely low" saying that 23 missiles had hit their targets but it was unclear where 36 others had landed.

Facing his biggest foreign policy crisis since taking office in January, Trump took the toughest direct US action yet in Syria's six-year-old civil war, raising the risk of confrontation with Russia and Iran, Assad's two main military backers.

US officials insisted they informed Russian forces ahead of the missile attacks and that there were no strikes on sections of the base where Russians were present. But they said the administration did not seek Moscow's approval.

"Years of previous attempts at changing Assad's behaviour have all failed and failed very dramatically," Trump said from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, where he was attending a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Meanwhile the Syrian army said the missile attack killed six people and caused extensive damage, adding it would respond by continuing its campaign to "crush terrorism" and restore peace and security to all of Syria.

A statement from the army command described the attack on Friday as an act of "blatant aggression", saying it had made the United States "a partner" of Islamic State, the ex-Nusra Front and other "terrorist organisations".

Syrian state TV said that "American aggression" had targeted a Syrian military base with "a number of missiles and cited a Syrian military source as saying the strike had "led to losses."