Understand The Times, International

The United States fired cruise missiles on Friday at a Syrian airbase from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched this week, the first direct U.S. assault on the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad in six years of civil war. U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the step his predecessor Barack Obama never took: directly targeting Assad's military with airstrikes in response to a chemical weapons attack Tuesday that killed at least 70 people, many of them children. The strike posited the United States in a confrontation with Russia, which has military advisers on the ground assisting its close ally Assad.

"Years of previous attempts at changing Assad's behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically," Trump said as he announced the attack from his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, where he was meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping. "Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack," he said of Tuesday's chemical weapons strike, which Western countries attribute to Assad's forces. "No child of God should ever suffer such horror."

The swift action is likely to be interpreted as a signal to Russia, and also to other countries such as North Korea, China and Iran where Trump has faced foreign policy tests early in his presidency. The Syrian army said the U.S. attack killed six people at its air base near the city of Homs. It called the attack "blatant aggression" and said it made the United States a "partner" of "terrorist groups," including Islamic State. Homs Governor Talal Barazi said seven people had been killed. A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the strike had seriously damaged ties between Washington and Moscow. Putin, a staunch ally of Assad, regarded the U.S. action as "aggression against a sovereign nation" on a "made-up pretext," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Early Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the American attack, saying he "fully supports" Trump's decision. Netanyahu said in a statement that "in both word and action" Trump "sent a strong and clear message" that "the use and spread of chemical weapons will not be tolerated."

Israel's Channel 2 reported that Israel, along with other U.S. allies, had been notified in advance.

For years, Washington has backed rebel groups fighting against Assad in a complex multi-sided civil war under way since 2011 that has killed more than 400,000 people. The war has driven half of Syrians from their homes, creating the world's worst refugee crisis.

Iran, which backs Assad, denounced the U.S. strike, saying it was "dangerous, destructive and violation of international laws" to use chemical weapons as an excuse for unilateral action.