U. S. No longer on the sidelines what happens as we move forward . Reaction from our allies continues to pour in. What are we learning this morning . Reporter good morning the reaction coming in fast and foou furious, you have countries like saudi arabia, qatar waiting for this for yours, they are calling trumps decision a courageous decision, turkey also calling it a positive response saying the next step should be an immediate implementation of no fly zones, there was a cartoon in the arab news a major publication here in the middle east, it show a lot of the reaction, it shows an eeg until t eagle flying, swooping down on assad and isis. Thank you. Early start continues right now. This is cnn breaking news. Tonight i ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in syria from where the chemical attack was launched. That breaking news a series of missile strikes by the United States on syria after the Chemical Attacks. Reaction is strong and swift. Whats the next move from President Trump . Live coverage around the world. Im dave briggs. And im christine romans. 11 00 in the morning in syria, we welcome all of our viewers in the u. S. And around the world. U. S. Warships launched 59 tomahawk missiles at the same airfield where the Chemical Attacks were based. Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. No child of god could ever such horror. This is the first direct military action the u. S. Has taken against the assad regime in the countrys sixyear long civil war. Whats the reaction from syria . Moscow . What will be the next move by President Trump who not long ago said the u. S. Should stay out of syria . Our coverage begins at the pentagon with ryan brown. Good morning. Reporter good morning. We are learning now that the u. S. Military has targeted several elements of this air base in order to render it inoperable, targeted the taxi ways, radar, antiaircraft, so it was an emffort to deter similar action to the strike earlier this week. They are waiting to get the full assessments in how successful it was. Given the number of missiles, 59 tomahawk cruise missiles and the targeted nature, they werent trying to hit any of the regime soldiers and definitely werent trying to hit any of the russians and were using a to avoid any potential Russian Forces hit in the strike. According to the general command, six people were killed in these airstrikes. Thank you. Lets get some world reaction from christiane amanpour. Good morning. Reporter good morning. What is your reaction given where the president was 36 hours ago to where we are now . Reporter well, i think its absolutely where we thought he would go after his reaction in the rose garden to the chemical attack. The British Defense secretary has just said this chemical attack by assad regime was the first test of the young Trump Administration and the United States were trying to deter any further attacks, so big big support by the united kingdom, they did this alone although the uk nato and others were informed this was going to happen but did not ask for any help from allies. We have reaction from germany saying this is understandable that particularly after russia and china failed to even come to a resolution to condemn the chemical attack and before that having vetoed resolutions condemning the chemical attack this reaction is quote understandable, thats from germany. Japan also says it finds this appropriate, and israel has said the same and so on and so forth. And i think its really important, very important to see the reaction coming from china, particularly as china has long been an obstructionist, the chinese according to the afp have said we condemn the use of chemical weapons under any circumstances by any party. Thats a change because as i said not so long they were party to vetoing anything that condemns that, and at the time president xi is in florida with President Trump so this is the atmosphere with reaction to this strike. And its interesting what the message must be to president xi as well. The world faces a twoprong crisis, its said that warned that his most Important International crisis would be a rapidly nuclear arming north korea, so here we have this happening right now, this response to syria at a time when the president of the United States, his allies need to figure out a way forward with china to deter north korea, so this is a very important moment to clarify the realities on the table for the United States and rest of the world not just for syria but most importantly over north korea. Russia does have the ability to shoot down our missiles in syria. They were warned about this imminent military action, saying one thing, doing another what do you make of that . Reporter it is not in russias interest to get into a military confrontation with the United States. What is interesting what matthew said is that essentially syria can see that russia stood back and let this happen whether it liked it or not and should also send a very, very strong message if that turns out to be the case to president assad and actually being defiant a military commander is quoted saying were going to repair this airfield and back in action pretty soon and president assad just a couple of days ago was published saying we are going to continue this war, we have no option, no matter what were going to do it so they dont show any sign to being a political resolution to this war and the fact that they used chemical weapons again, weapons of mass destruction is a clarifying moment. I want to ask you about the lack of congressional approval. Some criticism coming in at least from senator rand paul. Thats something that has hit president obama in the past. You couldnt do anything in syria without congressional approval. Lets talk about the politics and geopolitical implications when we come back. Our military expert explains how the president weighs his option, next. Welcome back, to our breaking News Coverage before green lighting the attack the president was briefed by james mattis. Lets get reaction from the former member of joint chief of staffs. Good morning. Above all else was this intended to send a message of the assad regime of what we will not tolerate . Reporter absolute, the reason it was a message was after it got the attention of the world press and that compelled the president to act and he felt he had to do something not only because of the moral implications but because it simply violates the International Law to use chemical weapons at all and that becomes the main issue for the president in this particular case. He was presented we assume yesterday a suite of options of what to do in the region. This sounds as though it is the least fraught with potential i guess unintended consequences, looked very carefully planned, warned russians this was going to happen, your response to choosing this particular option . Reporter i do agree, christine, it was probably the option the least dangerous fraught with issues like you said and i think what normally happens and i know from my appearance you basically give Decision Makers three options and that seems to have been the case in this particular situation, so he could have done nothing, he could have gone with a much more extreme response or he could have gone with what we would call basically by comparison a measured response. And that is what happened. He decided, the president decided, that he need today send this message to assad because this kind of behavior was just getting in essence too much for the United States to take and certainly for the Trump Administration to take. What is interesting about this is that this response puts us on a collision course with the russians. And the fact that it does that, that creates other problems not only in the relationship between the United States and russia, but also in the relationship that we need in order for us to prosecute the war against isis. And thats where i think the difficulties are going to come in. As Matthew Chance pointed out, russia was warned about this, they had a chance to knock it down but didnt. Hes taking some criticism on that this morning from rand paul from kentucky. While we all condemn the actions in syria, the yooipunited state not attacked, the president needs congressional authorization for military action. Reporter the president was taking that one piece that traditionally we use when it comes to either the war powers act or any authorization to use military force and what he was going was he was saying this is in the National Interest of the United States to go after a sovereign country and installations in that soncountr because they violated International Norms, what he was basically saying was i have the authorization to quickly go in and surgically handle a military matter of this type by directly attacking a foreign adversary because they have violated International Norms of behavior, and thats the type of interpretation we have seen used somewhat modified form by several different administrations everything from the First Bush Administration to bush 43, even the Clinton Administration and to some extent the Obama Administration used something similar to this as well. Colonel we are showing a tweet from 2013 saying the president must get congressional approval before attacking syria. Big mistake if he does not. And out of syria, we dont have the leadership to win wars even strategize, what an evolution of thinking. Reporter absolutely. It goes to the old adage of where you sit is where you stand. He is commander in chief. He gets more information that he had before as a private citizen. He sees compelling images, he perhaps saw something we are not privy to through intelligence channels and he felt he had to act this way and why his addition making and view on syria has evolve from the that tweet to today. Real politics, once you have the job in the white house everything changes. The all right fraught relationship between u. S. And russia with the airstrikes now, theres some pretty sharp reaction from moscow. Weve got that next. All right. 24 minutes after the hour, breaking news the u. S. Launching tomahawk missiles to a Syrian Air Base after an a chemical attack that killed scores of children. The reaction from russia reporter the kremlin has said this was an active aggression against the sovereign state in violation of the International Norms and false pretext was the word they used and the fact is they dont agree with the allegation that Syrian Forces used chemical weapons on their strike a few days ago that caused such a massive loss of life, they say it was a regular airstrike which target add Storage Depot that the rebels were using, and that caused the loss of life, so theres a difference of opinion there, but sharp condemnation coming from the kremlin, also Foreign Ministry, also saying theres a measure being taken by the u. S. And they are suspending the air safety agreement between the United States and russia on the ground in syria. Its a mechanism by which the two countries can deac conflicd. This is important to make sure the two countries dont come in contact in the skies and it was the conduit by wh tich the russians were warned. That wont be there in the future. Thank you. Any developments let us know. Thanks. But with the u. S. No longer allied with our lets get to Muhammad Lila is live in istanbul. We are learning reaction from our allies in the region. What are they saying this morning . Reporter weve been talking about how complicated the situation is on the ground in syria, but for our allies this isnt complicated at all. Turkey and including some happy calling trumps decision a quote courageous decision to launch a military operation, turkey saying they believe its an appropriate response, pushing forward even more saying now is the time to implement an immediate no fly zone as well as creating safe zones, the arab news putting out a cartoon which really summarizes the approach and the attitude of americas allies here. Its an American Eagle no longer shackled by chains and is now swooping down on iran, syria and isis. Thats the reaction at least of americas allies here in the region. 11 28 in syria. Thank you so much. The latest from Syrian Forces six killed, 59 tomahawk missiles struck that airfield in syria. Is regime change any closer or will this simply embolden president assad . In the wake of a campaign where he promised not to intervene the president launches strikes against the Syrian Regime, how does this affect the conflict in the long term . We have coverage around the world. Welcome back, im christine romans. Im dave briggs, it is 11 32 in syria, we welcome our viewers around the world. President trump launching strikes in syria, u. S. Warships launched 59 tomahawk cruise missiles at a syrian airfield, the same airfield that carried out the Chemical Attacks were based. Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women, and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. No child of god should ever suffer such horror. This is the direct military action the u. S. Has taken against assad in the sixyear civil war, what is the reaction from moscow, and what will be the next move when the president said not long ago the u. S. Should stay out of syria . Ryan brown, put us up to speed. Reporter good morning, these strikes were targeted at this air base link toded to the chem weapons attacks, information indicated that planes were involved in a chemical weapons strike including tracking data showing the planes leaving that air base, conducting the strike and returns, they werent targeted at the personnel at the base, but were targeted at aircraft, radar, everything that makes the airfield operational, officials said. Its at a time they expected fewer personnel present. This was incapacitating the airfield which has a long history of chemical weapons, the arrangement that was supposed to eliminate stock pile of those types of weapons and general mic master sa mcmaster said this was a targeted strike, 59 tomahawk missiles in the hopes that it will deter future chemical weapons being created by the assad regime. Lets get some world reaction. Turn to cnns chief correspondent christiane amanpour. We know why he sent the airstrikes sending the message to the assad regime. What we dont know is after being assured from President Trump, nikki haley that they were in a sense staying in comfortable they he would launch this chemical weapon attack . Reporter its first why would anybody use those types of weapons of mass destruction but is something that has to be flushed out in the days and months ahead. Why did he feel so reckless, that he was in a relatively good position, sitting there with were powerful support from russia and iran has he continues but also saying he wanted to continue the war, so that is assads mindset. Now for the United States and its allies, really important that theyre getting a will the of support. The u. S. Is getting a lot of support from its allies, the british have said this was the first major test for the Trump Administration and President Trump in foreign policies and Foreign Affairs and therefore this response was absolutely the right one and aimed at deterring assad from any further chemical weapons attack, so theyre saying whether its france, germany, japan, israel, all the countries of nato were informed, the United States arab allies in the rest of the world have come to the support of the u. S. The question is, does it lead any further than this . And what will happen with the russia piece of this, which obviously condemned this . A very important reaction is from the chinese. We know the chinese president is in florida meeting with President Trump, they have said they condemn the use of chemical weapons at any time by any party. And thats interesting because they vetoed any chemical weapons resolution for instance last month so its an important statement from china. And one wonders how this administration evolves on the humanitarian crisis in syria. The president clearly move bid the pictures of the innocent babies who he said were murdered, yet hes also said there would be no Syrian Refugees on u. S. Soil and actually won the election say saying he was going to keep those people out of this country. Reporter look, its hard to know whether that will change but certainly something did change how you react to this kind of horror, and President Trump even back in 2013 when president obama laid down a chemical weapons red line and failed to followup on it at the time President Trump tweeted that president obama should not get involved, dont get involved there, save your powder i think were the actual words and on the campaign trail he sort of switched and blamed president obama for not doing enough, so all of that was before he was in the white house, and faced with these grave issues that has to have some kind of action and reaction, so we saw in the rose garden when he was speaking with the king of jordan, he had done what i term a 18