Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that Western missile strikes on his country were an act of aggression.

The Syrian president made the remarks during a meeting with a delegation representing the United Russia, the ruling political party of the Russian Federation, in the capital Damascus on Sunday, adding that the aerial aggression was accompanied with a campaign of misdirection and lies at the UN Security Council against Syria and Russia, Syria’s close ally in the fight against foreign-backed militancy in the country.

The strikes, conducted during the early hours of Saturday, hit three sites, one in Damascus, and two in the city of Homs, which US President Donald Trump claimed were “associated with the chemical weapon capabilities” of the Syrian government.

Elsewhere in his remarks, President Assad stressed the need to implement executive mechanisms to improve economic cooperation between Damascus and Moscow, particularly in the field of reconstruction in Syria. He also put emphasis on the importance of the existing parliamentary cooperation between the two sides in international circles.

The illegal air raids also sparked a wave of condemnations from a number of countries, including Iran, Russia and Iraq.

The US-led military coalition, which has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be terrorists’ targets inside the Arab country since September 2014, has no authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate