Leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox churches in Syria have condemned the air strikes carried out by the U.S. against military compounds in the country and they are also raising questions about the legality of the operation.
The air strikes conducted by the U.S., the U.K., and France on Friday targeted three military sites that are suspected of housing chemical weapons. Two of the sites were located in Homs, while one compound was in Damascus, Crux reported.
Three Syrian patriarchs have issued a statement denouncing the raids as a "brutal aggression," that violates international law and the U.N. charter.
"It causes us great pain that this assault comes from powerful countries to which Syria did not cause any harm in any way," the statement read, as reported by Premier.
"The allegations of the USA and other countries that the Syrian army is using chemical weapons and that Syria is a country that owns and uses this kind of weapon, is a claim that is unjustified and unsupported by sufficient and clear evidence. This brutal aggression destroys the chances for a peaceful political solution and leads to escalation and more complications," it continued.
According to Crux, the signatories of the statement were Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, John X; Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, Ignatius Aphrem II, and Melkite-Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, Joseph Absi.
The air raids came after the Syrian town of Douma was hit with a chemical weapons attack last week, resulting in the deaths of at least 75 people.
U.N. war crimes investigators traveled to Syria on Friday to investigate the attack, just as the U.S., the U.K. and France launched the air raids.
The patriarchs lamented the fact that the air strikes took place just before the investigators started the inquiry. They also contended that the raids would give terror groups the "momentum to continue in their terrorism."
The patriarchs went on to urge Christian churches in countries that conducted the raids to denounce the attacks and urge their respective governments to "commit to the protection of international peace."
Other Syrian Christian leaders have also questioned the reasoning behind the air strikes. Chaldean Catholic Bishop Antoine Audo, of Aleppo suggested that the international community is using the alleged existence of chemical weapons as justification to wage war in Syria. "What they did in Iraq, they're doing now to Syria," he said.
Audo went on to suggest that the alleged use of chemical weapons by President Bashar al-Assad was just a ruse by the U.S. and Russia as they struggle to gain more influence.
