US, France, Britain launch strikes on Syria: Trump

President Donald Trump announced today that a joint US-British-French operation had been launched on Syria, targeting the "criminal" regime of Bashar al-Assad and saying an alleged chemical attack had marked a "significant escalation."

"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 primetime televised address to the nation.

"A combined operation with the armed forces of France and the United Kingdom is now under way. We thank them both. This massacre was a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use by that very terrible regime.