The United States on Friday carried out airstrikes on more than 70 Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria, in retaliation for an attack that killed two American soldiers and an interpreter in Palmyra last week.
The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for the Middle East, said on social media that the US military had “launched a large-scale strike against ISIS infrastructure and weapons sites in Syria.”
Syrian state television reported that the attacks targeted rural areas in Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces, as well as targets in the Jabal al-Amour region near Palmyra.
It said they “targeted weapons storage sites and headquarters used by IS for its operations in the region.”
A Pentagon official told The Associated Press that the strike was carried out using F-15 Eagle fighter jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters.
“Earlier today, the U.S. military launched Operation Hawkeye strikes in Syria to eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites in direct response to the December 13 attack on U.S. forces in Palmyra, Syria,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a social media post.
He added, “This is not the beginning of war – this is a declaration of retaliation.” “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. A lot of them. And we will continue.”
Recap: Two US soldiers killed in Syria
On Dec. 13, two members of the Iowa National Guard and a civilian interpreter were killed in an attack in the Syrian desert that the Trump administration has blamed on the Islamic State group.
The U.S. Army named the soldiers as Sergeant Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sergeant William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown. The interpreter was Ayad Mansour Sakat of Macomb, Michigan.
Immediately after the attack, which occurred when a Syrian security guard walked into a meeting of American and Syrian security officials and opened fire, US President Donald Trump promised a “very serious response”.
He stressed that the target of the response would be IS, not Syria, stressing that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was “extremely angered and upset by this attack.”
On Friday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying, “Syria reiterates its commitment to fighting the Islamic State and intensifying military operations against the group following the US strikes.” It added that “there can be no safe haven on Syrian territory” for the terrorist group.
Trump said Friday that the U.S. “is attacking ISIS strongholds in Syria with great force, a bloody place with a lot of problems, but if ISIS can be destroyed, it has a bright future.”
Earlier this week, Trump met privately with families of dead Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Is Islamic State still present in Syria?
The so-called Islamic State is considered militarily defeated after taking over large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014, but its fighters remain active in both countries and continue to carry out attacks.
Since coming to power and ousting former President Bashar al-Assad a year ago, the new Syrian regime under al-Sharaa and his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group has attempted to restore ties with the international community and insist it opposes terrorism and Islamic extremism.
Syria is cooperating with the US-led coalition against Islamic State, an agreement reached when al-Shaara met Trump at the White House last month.
About 1,000 American troops are deployed in Syria.
Edited by: Shawn Sinico