America has 3 goals in Syria: US' Haley

NEW YORK

The U.S. ambassador to the UN on Sunday laid out three American goals in Syria in the wake of U.S.-led airstrikes targeting the Assad regime.

“First of all the president made it very clear we cannot have chemical weapons usage anywhere, and we will continue to combat that in any way we need to protect American interests,” Nikki Haley told CBS News' “Face the Nation.”

“Secondly, we want to make sure that they understand that ISIS [Daesh] has to be defeated completely and wholly in a way that we know that we have stabilized the region. And then thirdly we want to make sure that the influence of Iran doesn't take over the area.”

The U.S. is not looking for war, said Haley.

“That's the last thing the president wanted was war. We were not looking to kill people. That was not something that in our American values we would want to do.

"We wanted to send a strong message that they needed to stop the chemical weapons program,” she added.

Sanctions on Russia

Halley also announced U.S. plans to impose new sanctions on Russia over Syria, in addition to existing ones over Ukraine and meddling in U.S. elections.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin “will be announcing those on Monday if he hasn't already, and they will go directly to any sort of companies that were dealing with equipment related to Assad and chemical weapons use.”

The U.S., U.K., and France early Saturday launched airstrikes on reported Assad regime chemical weapons facilities in Syria.

Reporting by Betul Yuruk:Writing by Nilay Kar

The strikes followed the Assad regime allegedly carrying out a chemical attack in Douma, Syria which killed 78 civilians and injured hundreds of others.