The situation in Syria "amounts to an international armed conflict" following U.S. missile strikes on a Syrian airbase, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Reuters on Friday.

"Any military operation by a state on the territory of another without the consent of the other amounts to an international armed conflict," ICRC spokeswoman Iolanda Jaquemet told Reuters in Geneva. "So according to available information - the U.S. attack on Syrian military infrastructure - the situation amounts to an international armed conflict."

ICRC officials were raising the attack with U.S. authorities as part of its ongoing confidential dialogue with parties to the conflict, she added.