Updated April 14, 2018 22:45:56

Photo: The air strikes were confined to Syrian military infrastructure to avoid Russian and Iranian casualties. (AP Photo: Hassan Ammar)

The US-led missile strikes in Syria appear to have been carefully calculated to minimise any further escalation in the Syrian war, while going as far as possible to prevent any further chemical attacks on civilians.

Whether they have gone far enough remains to be seen.

Significantly, the US and its allies have confined their operation to Syrian military infrastructure, and explicitly avoided the possibility of Russian or Iranian casualties.

The missiles targeted three separate facilities linked to Syria's chemical weapons arsenal, including a research facility in Damascus, a chemical weapons storage facility in Homs — allegedly used to prepare the nerve agent sarin gas — and another nearby command post.

Photo: RAF Tornados launched Storm Shadow missiles at a chemical weapons facility near Homs. (Supplied, UK Ministry of Defence)

Britain says one of the targets was a former missile base, just west of Homs, where the Syrian regime was believed to have kept "chemical weapon precursors stockpiled in breach of [its] obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention."

Certainly, the latest strikes have done more damage than a similar operation 12 months ago, when 59 US Tomahawk missiles targeted a military base at Shayrat, in central Syria.

Those strikes destroyed an airstrip, aircraft and fuel stations, and were retaliation for another chemical gas attack at Khan Sheikhoun, that killed around 90 people, an attack the United Nations later officially blamed on Syrian forces.

On that occasion the US attack was confined to the airbase where planes carrying the sarin and chlorine gas had taken off. But it did nothing to target the Syrian Government's chemical weapons stockpile.

This time the US appears to have shown a determination to go further. The number of missiles fired appear to be much larger. But the impact is far less than the "World War III" many feared.

Photo: The missiles targeted three separate facilities linked to Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

For all its firepower, the missile attack may again amount to just a warning — albeit stronger than last year's — that further chemical weapons attacks will incur similar retaliatory strikes.

President Donald Trump says Washington is prepared to "sustain pressure" on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad until he ends a criminal pattern of killing his own people with chemical weapons.

Photo: The air strikes were aimed to stop further chemical attacks by the Assad regime. (AP Photo: Hassan Ammar)

Those comments raised immediate questions as to whether the military operation would extend beyond an initial round of missile strikes.

US Defence Secretary James Mattis has since offered clarification, saying the strikes were a "one-time shot." But he also has not ruled out further attacks.

That depends now on the response from Syria, and its allies Russia and Iran.

Clearly, a limited strike by the US and its allies offers the best chance of limiting any retaliation.

But it will also lessen the chance of deterring further chemical attacks.

It is impossible to know whether the latest strikes have destroyed all the remaining stockpiles of chemicals used to create sarin or other nerve agents.

Even if they have, there is no guarantee that chlorine gas attacks will not continue, given the relative ease of obtaining the chemicals used to make chlorine gas, and their widespread use in non-military industry and agriculture. Chlorine gas is easier to make and almost as lethal as sarin.

The Syrian Government pledged to destroy its entire chemical weapons stockpile in 2013, and signed up to the international chemical weapons treaty for the first time, after global condemnation of an earlier sarin attack — widely blamed on Syrian forces — that the US said killed 1,400 people at Ghouta.

Under the deal, Syria also gave a commitment to reveal the location of its entire chemical weapons stockpile, and allow United Nations weapons inspectors into the country to verify their destruction.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons later sent a team to Syria that confirmed much, if not most of the stockpile, had been destroyed. But soon there were new reports of chemical weapons attacks, with strong evidence implicating Syrian Government forces. United Nations investigations blamed at least three of those attacks on the Syrian government — at Khan Sheikhoun, Talmenes and Sarmin.

For its part, the Syrian Government continues to deny that it was behind the latest chemical weapons attack, in Douma, and is yet to show how it plans to respond to the US-led strikes.

A pro-Syrian official said the Government in Damascus was still assessing the damage, but that advance warning from Russia allowed the timely evacuation of the targeted sites.

Russia has warned that "such actions will not be left without consequences".

But all sides know that any further escalation risks bringing the US and Russia into direct conflict, and bringing other US allies — particularly Britain and France — into the war.

The risk remains, but so far it seems to have been contained.

Topics: world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, donald-trump, syrian-arab-republic, russian-federation, united-states

First posted April 14, 2018 17:30:39