Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz has - like the US president - had a change of heart since 2013.

Image source, PA

Splits in the UK's opposition Labour Party have emerged over the US airstrike in Syria.

Leader Jeremy Corbyn criticised the attack, but his deputy, Tom Watson, said it was "a direct and proportionate response to a clear violation of international law". 

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry backed Mr Corbyn's stance, but Labour MP John Woodcock, who chairs the party's backbench defence committee, said the US's actions "should have Labour's full support". 

These images, taken by a Russian cameraman in Syria, have not been confirmed by the BBC.

Alexander Pushin is a cameraman working with Yevgeny Poddubny - a correspondent for Russian state TV.

The jury is out on this question.

BBC North America reporter Anthony Zurcher calls the move a dramatic turnaround by President Trump: "The man who was thought to be a neo-isolationist now, just months into his presidency, is projecting US military force abroad to enforce international norms and punish human rights abuses."

Jonathan Marcus, BBC Diplomatic correspondent, says that the strike is intended to send a message to Syria but it is a "one-off"., external

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor on Friday to praise the US military, and to offer to brief US senators on the latest developments.

"Our gratitude goes out to the world’s most capable military, which - in a span of just hours - presented options, capabilities and plans to the commander-in-chief and then executed a difficult mission. 

"None of this occurs without years of training, investment and dedication by our service members.

"This was an action of consequence. It is a clear signal from America that Bashar al Assad can no longer use chemical weapons against his own people with impunity."

Yesterday afternoon an ominous message was posted at the Subway sandwiches shop inside the Pentagon building complex, the headquarters for the US military.

Pentagon correspondents have sarcastically joked that the fast-food chain perhaps knew of things to come.

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has just released this statement:

"We have witnessed yet another atrocious act by the Assad regime against its own people, and we are called to conscience.  

"Last night’s military action in Syria met my standards for responding to atrocity: a limited action; with a clear objective; that is not the beginning of American ‘boots on the ground’ military operations."

Russia has  condemned, external the attack and a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin called the US strike "an act of aggression against a sovereign nation".

The  Russian foreign ministry, external  said that it is suspending a deal with the US that was designed to prevent clashes in the skies over Syria as the two countries wage different campaigns.

Defence officials also said Syria's air defences would be strengthened to protect key infrastructure.

The Syrian opposition applauded the US attack on an airbase near Homs on Friday but said it must not be a one-off and was not enough on its own to stop government warplanes from hitting rebel-held areas, Reuters reports. 

The Free Syrian Army, a loose alliance of rebel groups that includes factions that have received military support from the United States, said the strike was the "correct starting point" for finding a "just political solution" to the war.

But it warned the Syrian government and its allies could commit "acts of revenge" against civilians. 

Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to the Syrian government, told the BBC the attack was “against our sovereignty” and would “play into the hands of terrorists”.

She rejected allegations that Syria used chemical weapons, killing some 80 civilians, in Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province on Tuesday.

She said: "I think there should have been an investigation into where this gas, or whatever it is, where this chemical came from, who used it, where is it found. 

"Things should not be done in this way. They should be done in a very logical, legal way. This is no excuse for the attack."

She added that she thought the objective of the attack was to undermine Syria as a secular state and to allow Israel to be the "only dominant power in the region".

The BBC's Franz Strasser visited Lancaster, Pennsylvania soon after President Trump's election to talk about refugees from Syria.

"The refugees are like any other human looking for a better life," one man told him.

Many in the US today are discussing how Trump has been moved to attack Syria, but is still proposing barring Syrian refugees from seeking shelter in the US.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Jeremy Shapiro, an adviser at the State Department under the Obama administration, says President Trump launched the missile attack on Syria because he is "having problems at home".

Speaking to Mark Mardell on Radio 4's World at One, Mr Shapiro says the attack was a "symbolic act of domestic politics" that was unlikely to "improve the lives of people in a far away country".

Democrat Nancy Pelosi has written to Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who controls the legislative body's agenda, to ask him to reconvene it.

After Friday, they will be on recess for more than two weeks.

She writes that actions by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "places him outside the circle of civilised human behaviour".

Congress holds the responsibility, under the US Constitution, to declare war.

"Congress must live up to its Constitutional responsibility to debate an Authorization of the Use of Military Force against a sovereign nation," she says.

"As heartbreaking as Assad’s chemical weapons attack on his own people was, the crisis in Syria will not be resolved by one night of airstrikes. 

"The killing will not stop without a comprehensive political solution to end the violence," the California Democrat writes.  

Guardian journalist Kareem Shaheen visited the location where more than 80 people died in a suspected chemical weapons attack in the days before it occurred.

Here's what he saw:

Members of Congress are releasing statements, ahead of their two-week break, in which many will leave Washington to return to their home districts. 

Some members of Congress called for the White House to consult them on future attacks.