Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused on being complicit in the Syrian sarin attack that killed dozens of people. Picture: AP/Dmitri Lovetsky

The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at a Syrian air base on Friday from which it said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched earlier in the week, escalating the US role in Syria and drawing criticism from Assad’s allies including Russia and Iran.

“What America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well,” said the statement published by the group on media outlet Ilam al Harbi (War Media).

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Assad ‘has to go’ after gas attack

RELATED: US launches missile strikes on Syria

President Donald Trump, joined by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks during a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Picture: APSource:AP

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, meanwhile, blamed Russian inaction for helping fuel the chemical weapons attack it had reacted to, saying Moscow had failed to carry out a 2013 agreement to secure and destroy chemical weapons in Syria.

He said the United States expected Russia to take a tougher stance against Syria by rethinking its alliance with Assad because “every time one of these horrific attacks occurs, it draws Russia closer into some level of responsibility.”

“The failure related to the recent strike and the recent terrible chemical weapons attack in large measure is a failure on Russia’s part to achieve its commitment to the international community,” Mr Tillerson said on ABC America’s This Week program.

RUSSIA ‘COMPLICIT’ IN SYRIA HORROR

US President Donald Trump’s top diplomat will accuse Russia of complicity in Syria’s war crimes during a face-to-face meeting in Moscow this week with Vladimir Putin’s foreign minister.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will demand that Russia yank its support from Bashar al-Assad’s bloody dictatorship over Syria, where hundreds of thousands of innocents have died in a savage six-year-old civil war, the Sunday Times of London reported.

Mr Tillerson will confront Russia with evidence that it knew about — and tried to conceal — Assad’s sarin strike last week that killed 87 people, the paper said.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will confront Russian President Vladimir Putin this week over Syria. Picture: AP/Cliff OwenSource:AP

Mr Tillerson will also charge Russia with breaking its 2013 agreement to oversee the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, saying Moscow has “clearly failed in its responsibility” to eliminate the deadly arsenal.

In a weekend phone call with Mr Tillerson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied that the Syrian military had used chemical weapons in the attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, in Idlib province, on Tuesday.

Mr Lavrov said that “an attack on a country whose government fights terrorism only plays into the hands of extremists,” according to a statement from the Russian ministry.

The US and Britain strongly signalled to Mr Putin that Assad’s actions can no longer be tolerated.

The trans-Atlantic allies this weekend were composing a plan to demand that Russia halt military support for Assad and let Syria transition to a new government.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied that the Syrian military had used chemical weapons in the attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun. Picture: AFP/Alexander NemenovSource:AFP

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson cancelled plans to meet Mr Lavrov in Moscow after conferring with Mr Tillerson and Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday.

Sir Michael Fallon, Britain’s defence secretary, said Russia is “by proxy responsible for every civilian death last week” in an essay published on Sunday.

“Someone who uses barrel bombs and chemicals to his own people cannot be the future leader of Syria,” Mr Fallon wrote. “Assad must go.”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson cancelled his plans to meet with the Russian Foreign Minister. Picture: AFP/Louisa GouliamakiSource:AFP

TRUMP’S OUTRAGE

Mr Trump was visibly outraged when he announced the air strikes on Thursday night and condemned Assad for having “choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children,” and adding that “no child of God should ever suffer such horror.”

The president was deeply moved by the plea of Kassem Eid, a Syrian now living in Germany who survived a 2013 sarin-gas attack that killed about 1400 people.

Eid, who appeared on CNN on Wednesday, begged Trump to act.

“Please, Mr. President, in the name of every woman and child and elder who got killed by the Assad regime, please come and help us,” he said.

US President Donald Trump said last week he had no choice but to act after the Syrian gas attack. Picture: AFP/Jim WatosnSource:AFP

“Don’t make the same mistake that President Obama did ... Now you should show the world that those days are over.”

Sir Kim Darroch, Britain’s ambassador to the US, agreed with Eid, the Sunday Times reported.

“[Darroch] said that Mr Trump had inadvertently created a political test for himself by calling Obama weak,” a security source told the paper. “By his own logic he would be weak if he did not act.”

ALLIES PRESSED TRUMP TO ACT

King Abdullah of Jordan, who met with Mr Trump at the White House on Wednesday, also pressed Mr Trump to act, sources said.

On Thursday, Mr Trump formally authorised military strikes after arriving in Florida on air force One for a summit with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, at Mar-a-Lago.

“I think it does demonstrate that President Trump is willing to act when governments and actors cross the line on violating commitments they’ve made and cross the line in the most heinous of ways,” Tillerson said after the US air strike.

Mr Tillerson’s trip to Moscow will follow a meeting Tuesday of G-7 foreign ministers in Italy, where he will work to solidify support for a motion censuring Russia.

“President Trump was able to do in two days what President Obama could not do in six years,” said Riad Hijab, a former Syrian prime minister who broke with Assad and joined the opposition.

“President Trump was able to do in two days what President Obama could not do in six years,” said Riad Hijab, a former Syrian prime minister. Picture: AFP/US NavySource:AFP

PENCE REINFORCES SUPPORT

Vice President Mike Pence spoke by phone with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Saturday, assuring him of continued US support in the war on ISIS despite Washington’s strike on the Syrian air base.

Mr Pence “affirmed that US policy in the region didn’t change,” an Iraqi statement said.

Mr Trump formally notified Congress of the US missile strikes on Syria’s Shayrat airfield in a letter addressed to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate President Pro Tem Orrin Hatch on Saturday.

Mr Trump said he was writing to keep Congress informed “consistent with the War Powers Resolution,” a 1973 measure requiring the president to notify Congress of military action.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has faced worldwide criticism following the chemical attack. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

US intelligence indicated “that Syrian military forces operating from this airfield were responsible for the chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians in southern Idlib province, Syria, that occurred on April 4,” Mr Trump wrote.

The letter asserted that Mr Trump “acted in the vital national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.”

He added that the US “will take additional action, as necessary and appropriate, to further its important national interests.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani came out in support of the Syrian leadership. Picture: AFP/Sergei KarpukhinSource:AFP

Iran, an ally of the Assad regime, called for an impartial investigation into the chemical attack by neutral countries, reflecting claims by Assad and Russia that the chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun were held by rebels and hit by the regime’s missiles.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, speaking in a live broadcast on state television, also warned that the US strikes risked escalating extremism in the region.

“This man who claimed that he wanted to fight terrorism gave terrorist organisations a reason to celebrate, the American attack,” he said.

REFUGEES SEE ‘HOPE’ AFTER TRUMP MISSILE ATTACK

For the millions of Syrian refugees scattered across camps and illegal settlements, the chemical attack on a town in northern Syria and subsequent US strike was a rare moment when the world turned its attention to Syria, before turning away again.

Some cheered the US cruise missiles that hit an air base in central Syria — the first US strike against Syrian troops — but others insist they are opposed to any US intervention in their country. Few had any hopes that the apparent sudden shift in President Donald Trump’s policy would end up helping their situation.

“I saw him [Trump] on TV, he says he sympathises with the kids but then he shuts them out. What kind of support is that?” asked Hamrin Mohammed, 30, a Syrian refugee from the northern Syrian town of Derik, who fled the fighting in Syria and has been living in a camp in northern Iraq for years.

A Syrian refugee girl holds her brother as she walks at an informal refugee camp, at Al-Marj town in Bekaa valley, east Lebanon Lebanon. Picture: AP/Hassan AmmarSource:AP

The military strike marked a swift reversal on Syria for Mr Trump, who had repeatedly said the US should stay out of the years-long civil war. But several refugees regarded Mr Trump’s policy shift with a certain bitterness, noting that he said he was moved to act by photos of the “beautiful babies” killed in the gas attack after working for months to bar millions of refugee children and their families from entering the United States.

Mr Trump has not spoken on whether his renewed involvement in Syria will also include a changed policy on Syrian refugees. But some refugee agencies in the United States are hoping that change is coming as well.

“I suspect his thinking will evolve on this,” said Linda Hartke, president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

This story first appeared in the New York Post and was republished with permission.