As per the last statement by United States President Donald Trump over his twitter post, the country is going to attack Syrian government military and infrastructure facilities to stop it from further use of chemical weapons against the rebel-held town of Douma with missile the help of US military strikes.
Against to that, Russia, being an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has vowed to retaliate each and every attack by the Pentagon as it sees the allegation of Syrian government using chemical gas for attack against the rebel-held town as “fabrication”.
Analysts have figured it out about what is going to happen next after the mess.
Lawrence Korb is a former US assistant secretary of defence. According to him the US military is likely to use Tomhawk missiles.
These weapons were previously used during US attacks in Syria last year for the same reason of using chemical weapons in the rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun town of Idlib province.
The Pentagon said about the operation that 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from two warships in the Mediterranean at the Shayrat airfield in Homs province which targeted a Syrian airbase from where US officials alleged the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack had been launched. At least six Syrian military personnel were killed during the attacks.
This time too, US may rely upon Tomahawks again, analysts say.
“According to unofficial sources, the US deployed several carriers with cruise missiles in the Mediterranean and Red Seas,” said Fuad Shahbazov, a security and military expert based in Azerbaijan.
“Also possible attacks with fighter jets should be considered as the US has huge airbases in the Gulf countries,” he added.
The US will most likely choose to strike the Syrian army’s command and control headquarters along with its chemical weapons storage facilities, according to Shahbazov.
If seen from the location of US cruise missiles aboard its naval vessles, pro-Assad stronghold along the Mediterranean, in Latakia province, may face attacks from the sea, he said.
But according to Afzal Ashraf from the Centre for Conflict Security and Terrorism said that US President Donald Trump’s tweets specifically said “smart missiles” will be used likely were not appreciated by his own military commanders and a new strategy may be under the pipeline.
“They usually don’t like to declare what they’re going to do and how they’re going to do it beforehand,” said Ashraf. “So the US military may decide to use a different method.”
The main goal of the attack on Syria would be the prevention of any further use of chemical weapons, said Korb.
But it remains unclear if the US knows where these chemical weapons are stored in Syria, Ashraf noted.
“If we know where the chemical weapons are then they can be destroyed. If they do attack chemical weapon installations, the question has to be asked why they haven’t attacked there before. I doubt there are any chemical weapon installations that the West knows about. So these attacks will be general military targets,” he said.
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