US carries out ‘massive’ strike against IS in Syria
The United States says its military has launched a “major offensive” against the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria in response to a deadly attack on American forces in the country.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Operation Hawkeye Strike aims to eliminate ISIS’ “fighters, infrastructure and weapons sites”.
Speaking to BBC’s US media partner CBS, US officials said that warplanes, attack helicopters and artillery hit many targets in central Syria. Planes from Jordan also participated in the incident.
Last week, Washington said two US soldiers and a US civilian translator were killed in an ISIS ambush in the central Syrian city of Palmyra. President Donald Trump has promised “very serious retaliation.”
In a post published on
“Target Americans anywhere in the world and you will spend the rest of your short, anxious life knowing that the United States will hunt you down, find you, and brutally kill you.
“Today we hunted and killed our enemies. Many of them. And we will continue,” the US defense secretary added.
Meanwhile, US Central Command (Centcom) stated that “US forces have launched a large-scale attack against ISIS”, adding that more information will be provided soon.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OBHR) said that ISIS positions near the cities of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor were targeted.
It was stated that a prominent ISIS leader and many fighters were killed.
ISIS had no public comment. The BBC could not immediately confirm the targets.
Centcom, which manages America’s military operations in Europe, Africa and the Indo-Pacific, has previously said the deadly attack in Palmyra was carried out by an ISIS gunman who was “engaged and killed.”
Three more US soldiers were injured in the ambush, and a Pentagon official said the incident took place “in an area over which the Syrian president has no control.”
SOHR also announced that the attacker was a member of the Syrian security forces.
While no group claimed responsibility for the attack, the identity of the attacker was not disclosed.
In 2019, a US-backed alliance of Syrian fighters announced: ISIS had lost the last piece of land it controlled in Syria. however, the jihadist group has carried out some attacks since then.
The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.
U.S. troops have maintained a presence in Syria since 2015 to help train other forces as part of the campaign against ISIS.
