White House: The devastating images that emerged from Douma, Syria, on April 7 reveal the unique and gruesome danger that chemical weapons pose to the world. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s latest attack on innocent civilians violated his regime’s obligations under international law, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and several United Nations Security Council Resolutions, including Security Council Resolution 2118.

It also represents human cruelty in its most depraved form. The Assad regime must be held accountable.

Speaking to the Nation last night, President Donald J. Trump explained that he ordered U.S. Armed Forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with Syrian chemical weapons capabilities. He thanked the United Kingdom and France for joining America in the operation, which will continue to pressure Syria to stop using chemical weapons by integrating the other instruments of our national power: economic, informational, and diplomatic.

“Today, the nations of Britain, France, and the United States of America have marshaled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality,” President Trump said. He emphasized the savagery of chemical attacks, with evidence from Douma documenting victims suffering from asphyxiation and foaming at the mouth.

“The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children, thrashing in pain and gasping for air,” the President said. “These are not the actions of a man; they are crimes of a monster instead.”

Unlike the regime and its backers in Syria, the United States and its allies made every effort to minimize the risk of civilian casualties in their response. Yesterday’s strikes against Syrian facilities were legitimate, proportionate, and justified.

Most important, they were necessary. Chemical weapons are a unique danger to civilized nations not only because of their brutality, but because even small amounts can trigger widespread devastation. To prevent their spread, everyone must understand that the costs of using chemical weapons will always outweigh any military or political benefits.

America’s past failures to act undermined that goal. With each chemical attack that goes unpunished, dangerous regimes see an opportunity to expand their arsenal. That threat alone is grave enough, but the biggest hazard is that unstable governments cannot control these stockpiles. As state inventories of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons grow, so too does the likelihood that such weapons will fall into terrorist hands—and put American lives at risk.

President Trump made it clear that Assad’s enablers share culpability for his actions. “To Iran, and to Russia, I ask: What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women, and children?” President Trump said yesterday. “The nations of the world can be judged by the friends they keep.”

The President’s comments come as the Trump Administration has taken new actions to confront destabilizing and malicious behavior by Russia, including tough sanctions on Russian oligarchs, government officials, and entities that support activities to undermine the United States, as well as the ejection of Russian intelligence operatives in response to Russia’s chemical weapons attack in Salisbury, England.

When it comes to Syria, “Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path, or if it will join with civilized nations as a force for stability and peace,” President Trump said.

The Administration has set clear terms for America’s involvement in the Middle East. Nation-building is not on the table; the protection of American interests is. President Trump said the United States is not seeking a long-term presence in Syria, nor will it renege establishing a strong deterrent against the use of chemical weapons. If a true, lasting peace is to be found in Syria, it will be the result of the full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254 and the U.N.-led Geneva process rather than military means.

“In the last century, we looked straight into the darkest places of the human soul,” the President said. “By the end of the World War I, more than one million people had been killed or injured by chemical weapons. We never want to see that ghastly specter return.”

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On April 12, 2018, White House reported that: President Donald J. Trump spoke today with Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom.  The leaders continued their discussion of the need for a joint response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons.

On April 13, 2018, British prime minister Theresa May announces she has authorised 'coordinated and targeted' strikes to degrade the Syrian regime's chemical weapons capability, blaming the Russia for thwarting diplomatic efforts at a resolution. She says the strikes will 'send a clear signal to anyone else who believes they can use chemical weapons with impunity'. In a veiled reference to the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the UK, she adds: 'We cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalised, within Syria, on the streets of the UK or anywhere else in our world.'

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 She insisted the Syria strikes led by the US were was not about intervening in a civil war or about regime change.

On Apr 14, 2018,  Golden State Times:  Defense Secretary James Mattis opend URGENT Press Conference

According to DOD:

Secretary of Defense, Mattis, General, Dunford Detail Attacks on Syrian Chemical Arsenal

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis and Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, brief reporters at the Pentagon about military operations in Syria, April 13, 2018.

WASHINGTON, April 13, 2018 —

U.S., British and French air and naval forces launched attacks against the Syrian government’s chemical weapon arsenal in retaliation for the use of such weapons on civilians, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis and Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference tonight.

“As the world knows, the Syrian people have suffered terribly under the prolonged brutality of the Assad regime,” the secretary said. “On April 7, the regime decided to again defy the norms of civilized people showing callous disregard for international law by using chemical weapons to murder women, children and other innocents. We and our allies find these atrocities inexcusable.”

President Donald J. Trump ordered the strikes to stop the regime from using such inhumane weapons again. Mattis said stopping the atrocities is in the vital national interests of the United States.

Research and Development Facilities

The strikes hit Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s chemical weapon research, development and production facilities. The strikes tonight were far harder than the ones last year, when the United States launched 58 missiles against the Shayrat air base following a chemical attack.

“Obviously, the Assad regime did not get the message last year,” Mattis said.

The strikes now send a very clear message to Syrian leaders “that they should not perpetrate another chemical weapons attack for which they will be held accountable,” the secretary said.

Mattis emphasized that the strikes were directed against the Syrian regime, and the strike planners went to great lengths to avoid civilian and foreign casualties. “It is a time for all civilized nations to urgently unite to end the Syrian civil war by supporting the United Nations backed Geneva peace process,” the secretary said.

The three nations forces were integrated throughout the planning and execution of the operation, Dunford said. “The targets that were struck and destroyed were specifically associated with the Syrian regime chemical weapons program,” the chairman said.

The first target was a scientific research center in the greater Damascus area. The military facility was a center for research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological agents, the general said. The second target was a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs. “We assess this was the primary location of Syrian sarin and precursor production equipment,” he said. “The third target … contained both a chemical weapons storage facility and an important command post.”

Long-Term Degradation

The strikes should result in a long-term degradation of Syria’s chemical and biological warfare capabilities, the chairman said. “The strike was not only a strong message to the regime that their actions were inexcusable, but it also inflicted maximum damage without unnecessary risks to civilians,” Dunford said.

The strike was also planned to mitigate the risk to Russian forces that are supporting the Assad regime, the general said.

More than double the amount of ordnance used in last year’s strike was used in this one, Dunford said. He said there were reports of Syrian anti-aircraft actions, but it is too early to assess the effectiveness. There were no allied casualties.

The strike is meant to deter Assad from contemplating another attack, and allied forces are ready to continue the action if Assad continues to use these banned weapons, Mattis said.

(Follow Jim Garamone on Twitter: @GaramoneDoDNews)

On April 4th: White House, Statement by the Press Secretary on Syria, FOREIGN POLICY Issued on: April 4, 2018

The military mission to eradicate ISIS in Syria is coming to a rapid end, with ISIS being almost completely destroyed.  The United States and our partners remain committed to eliminating the small ISIS presence in Syria that our forces have not already eradicated.  We will continue to consult with our allies and friends regarding future plans. We expect countries in the region and beyond, plus the United Nations, to work toward peace and ensure that ISIS never re-emerges.

Syria's chemical weapons program began in the 1970s with weapons and training from Egypt and the Soviet Union, with production of chemical weapons in Syria beginning in the mid-1980s. Prior to September 2013 Syria had not publicly admitted to possessing chemical weapons, although Western intelligence services believed it to hold one of the world's largest stockpiles.  In September 2013, French intelligence put the Syrian stockpile at 1,000 tonnes, including Yperite, VX and "several hundred tonnes of sarin".  At the time, Syria was one of a handful of states which had not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. In September 2013, Syria joined the CWC (formally acceding on 14 October), and agreed to the destruction of its weapons, to be supervised by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), as required by the Convention. A joint OPCW-United Nations mission was established to oversee the destruction process. Syria joined OPCW after international condemnation of the August 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, for which Western states held the Syrian government responsible (whilst Syria and Russia held the Syrian rebels of the Syrian civil war responsible) and agreed to the prompt destruction of its chemical weapons, resulting in U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declaring on 20 July 2014: "we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out." The destruction of Syria's chemical weapons that the Assad government had declared was completed by August 2014, yet further disclosures, incomplete documentation, and allegations of withholding part of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile since mean that serious concerns regarding chemical weapons and related sites in Syria remain. On 5 April 2017, the government of Syria allegedly unleashed a chemical attack that killed 70 children and adults.  A suspected chemical attack on Douma on 9 April 2018 that killed at least 49 civilians has been blamed on the Assad regime

VICE NewsThis Is What Life Is Like Inside Assad's Syria: VICE on HBO, Full

Episode

The Syrian Civil War is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict in Syria fought primarily between the government of President Bashar al-Assad, along with its allies, and various forces opposing both the government and each other in varying constellations.

The unrest in Syria, part of a wider wave of 2011 Arab Spring protests, grew out of discontent with the Assad government and escalated to an armed conflict after protests calling for his removal were violently suppressed. The war is being fought by several factions: the Syrian government and its international allies, a loose alliance of SunniArab rebel groups (including the Free Syrian Army), the majority-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Salafi jihadist groups (including al-Nusra Front) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), with a number of countries in the region and beyond being either directly involved, or rendering support to one or another faction.

Iran, Russia and Hezbollah support the Syrian government militarily, with Russia conducting air operations since September 2015. On the other hand, the U.S.-led international coalition established in 2014 with a declared purpose of countering ISIL, have conducted airstrikes against ISIL in Syria as well as against government and pro-government targets.

International organizations have accused the Syrian government, ISIL and rebel groups of severe human rights violations and of many massacres. The conflict has caused a major refugee crisis. Over the course of the war a number of peace initiatives have been launched, including the March 2017 Geneva peace talks on Syria led by the United Nations, but fighting continues.

There are 8 Main groups in Syria: Libyan Province, Sinai Province, Yemen Province, Algerian Province, Khorasan Province, West Africa Province, Caucasus Province, and Somalia group

Current Syria Leaders are:

Leader: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Deputy leader in Iraq: Abu Fatima al-Jaheishi

Deputy leader in Syria: Abu Ali al-Anbari  

Deputy leader in Libya: Abdel Baqer Al-Najdi

Military chief: Abu Saleh al-Obaidi

Head of the Shura Council: Abu Arkan al-Ameri

Chief spokesperson: Abu Mohammad al-Adnani  

Chief of Syrian military operations: Abu Omar al-Shishani

Minister of War: Gulmurod Khalimov

Minister of Information: Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad

Spokesman: Abul-Hasan Al-Muhajir (foreign fighter)

Sources: Yahoo\wikipedia and Youtube ,wikipedia,  VOA, White House, DOD, CNA, Fox, News, Youtube Mania, Daily News, Military News,,VSB, and Youtupe Mania, ABC News
catch4all.com, Sandra Englund, April 16, 2018