President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that France’s air strikes in Syria in response to an alleged chemical attack were not a declaration of war against the Damascus regime Al Arabiya reported
“We have not declared war on the regime of Bashar al-Assad,” Macron said in a television interview, a day after France joined the United States and Britain in launching strikes.
The US, UK and France struck multiple government targets in Syria in an early morning operation targeting alleged chemical weapons sites.
The strikes, which hit the capital Damascus as well as two locations near the city of Homs, came following a suspected chemical attack on the Syrian town of Douma last week.
In a briefing at the Pentagon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, along with British and French counterparts, announced that three targets in Syria were "struck and destroyed".
Reportedly, 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,” Dunford said. “The third target … contained both a chemical weapons storage facility and an important command post.”