"At approximately 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on April 13, 2018, at my direction, United States military forces, acting in concert with French and British military forces, struck Syrian military chemical weapons-related facilities… I directed this action in response to the Syrian government's continued and unlawful use of chemical weapons… The purpose of this military action was to degrade the Syrian military's ability to conduct further chemical weapons attacks and to dissuade the Syrian government from using or proliferating chemical weapons," the text of Trump's letter to Congress said.
"I acted pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and in the vital national security and foreign policy interests of the United States," Trump said in the letter.
On Friday night, the United States, France and the United Kingdom launched strikes on a number of targets in Syria in response to the alleged chemical incident in the Damascus' suburb of Duma. The Western states have accused forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad of an attack with the use of chemical weapons in Duma. The Syrian leadership denied any involvement in the attack, and invited the experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to investigate into the reports.
