Syria latest: US 'locked and loaded' if chemical weapons used again – as it happened

US ambassador to UN warns Assad after strikes with UK and French allies on targets associated with chemical weapons

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Syria strikes there. Here’s where things stand:
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At the United Nations, the security council rejected a Russian resolution condemning “the aggression” against Syria by the United States and its allies. Only three countries - Russia itself, plus China and Bolivia - backed Moscow’s resolution calling for condemnation of the airstrikes carried out on Friday night. After the vote, the Russian envoy, Vassily Nebenzia said: “Today is a very sad day for the world, the UN, its charter, which was blatantly, blatantly violated.”
A senior US administration official went further than the Pentagon in saying sarin nerve agent was used by the Assad regime in Douma on 7 April. “We assess that chlorine and sarin were used in the attack,” the official said, pointing as evidence to the nature of the victims’ symptoms, such as the narrowing of pupils in their eyes, and the effects on their nervous systems, along with the sheer lethality of the gas. “Those symptoms don’t come from chlorine - they come from sarin,” she added.
Syrians remained divided over the airstrikes.
Wael Abdullah, a 25-year-old resident of Ghouta, told the Guardian: “This is a great step by President Trump by which he sends a hot message to Bashar Al-Assad that he can’t continue killing his people by all kinds of weapons with the help of the Russians and Iranians.” But Ayad Younis, a 35-year-old teacher in a secondary school in Damascus, said: “This is a blatant aggression against Syria, a staged drama created by the US to attack our land.”
Western leaders continued to add their voices of support for the US, France and UK airstrikes. “Canada stands with our friends in this necessary response and we condemn in strongest possible terms” the use of chemical weapons in Syria,” Justin Trudeau said on Saturday. Of the European leaders, only Italian premier Paolo Gentiloni warned that while this was a “limited and targeted action ... it cannot and should not be the start of an escalation”.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, described the strikes as an “act of aggression” and said the attack would worsen the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Anatoly Antonov, the
Russian ambassador to the US, said “such actions will not be left without consequences” and that Moscow was being threatened.
The US ambassador to the UN said Washington was “locked and loaded” to strike again if Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad again uses chemical weapons, at a fiery UN security council meeting in which the Russian ambassador accused the US, UK and France of “diplomatic hooliganism”.
The US, British and French strikes were aimed at damaging the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons facilities in the wake of last weekend’s gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Douma. Some 105 missiles were fired in total, the Pentagon said.