U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airfield from which a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched, declaring he acted in America's "vital national security interest" against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Sharply escalating the U.S. military role in Syria, two U.S. warships fired dozens of cruise missiles from the eastern Mediterranean Sea against the airbase controlled by Assad's forces in response to the poison gas attack on Tuesday in a rebel-held area, U.S. officials said.

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