The US, UK and France have disputed claims made by Syria and Russia that a significant number of incoming missiles were intercepted and shot down and that the damage inflicted by their raid had been minimal.
The Pentagon insisted that no missiles were intercepted by Syrian defences and that the raids were “precise and overwhelming” while claiming the Syrian air defences remained “largely ineffective”.
The Syrian brigadier general Ali Mayhoub, who read the statement on Syrian television, said: “Our air defences effectively shot down most of them.” He acknowledged the scientific research centre on the outskirt of Damascus had been hit and that one of the intercepted missiles had injured three people in Homs, which had been a target of the RAF.
Teams from the RAF and UK Ministry of Defence were examining satellite pictures and other material to determine the extent of the damage. Along with the US and France, they would also be attempting to establish the extent to which their missiles came under fire.
The MoD is unlikely to make public any operational details about whether or not missiles came under fire from Syrian air defences or were shot down. But it insisted the raid had been successful.
The US, which fired the bulk of the missiles, said it had lost none of them. France fired 12.
There had been fears before the attack that planes, which were not used in the US strike against Syria last year using Tomahawk missiles, would be vulnerable to Russia’s advanced air defence system, the S-400, which it has deployed in Syria.
Russia also threatened to upgrade the Syrian air defence systems to include the S-300 system, which Moscow says is also capable of bringing down Tomahawk missiles or planes.
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