Tomahawk launches practised by US before Trump gave go-ahead

A pair of US destroyers twice rehearsed firing toward a Syrian airbase

Sailing in the eastern Mediterranean, a pair of US destroyers twice rehearsed firing a fusillade of million-dollar missiles toward a Syrian airbase before President Donald Trump signed the order to launch.

Three hours after the president’s “execute order” on Thursday, the USS Ross and USS Porter fired 59 Tomahawk missiles built by Raytheon Co. The destroyers were in the Eastern Mediterranean but under supervision of the commander aboard the USS George H W Bush aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.

And an hour after that, the missiles hit their targets almost simultaneously, destroying about 20 Syrian aircraft in hangars and on runways