US, British and French forces pounded Syria with air strikes early on Saturday in response to a poison gas attack that killed dozens of people last week, in the biggest intervention by Western powers against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Donald Trump announced the military action from the White House late on Friday. As he spoke, explosions rocked Damascus. British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron said the UK and France had joined in the attack.
Trump said he was prepared to sustain the response until Assad’s government stopped its use of chemical weapons.
The strikes were the biggest intervention by Western powers against Assad in the country’s seven-year-old civil war and pitted the United States and its allies against Russia, which itself intervened in the war in 2015 to back Assad.
“A short time ago, I ordered the United States Armed Forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad,” Trump said in a televised address from the White House.
Speaking of Assad and his suspected role in last week’s chemical weapons attack, Trump said, “These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead.”
A U.S. official told Reuters the strikes were aimed at multiple targets and involved Tomahawk cruise missiles.
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