The U.S. military on Friday night launched strikes against dozens of sites in central Syria, U.S. officials said, following an attack last weekend that killed two U.S. soldiers and a civilian interpreter.
The strikes on Islamic State infrastructure and weapons storage locations began at about 4 p.m. Eastern time and hit more than 70 targets, officials said. A-10 attack jets, F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, and Apache helicopters were involved along with rocket artillery fired by U.S. forces in the region, said one person familiar with the operation. More than 100 precision munitions were deployed, officials said.
Friday’s assault followed a Dec. 13 ambush at a military base in the city of Palmyra that killed two members of the Iowa National Guard — Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29 — and Ayad Mansoor Sakat, 54, an Iraq-born interpreter who lived in Michigan. Three other U.S. soldiers and two members of Syria’s security forces were wounded, and President Donald Trump vowed afterward that the United States would retaliate.
No one has taken responsibility for the deadly attack, but U.S. officials have said that the Islamic State was probably responsible. Syrian officials have described the gunman as a member of the Syrian security forces who is suspected of sympathizing with the Islamic State.
Trump wrote on social media Friday night that the United States was “inflicting very serious retaliation, just as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible” for the Americans’ killing a week ago. U.S. forces were “striking very strongly against ISIS strongholds in Syria, a place soaked in blood which has many problems, but one that has a bright future if ISIS can be eradicated,” he added.
The Dec. 13 attack marked the first overseas combat deaths for the Pentagon this year, and it immediately forced the Trump administration to confront what to do in a long-running mission that Trump himself has voiced skepticism of in the past. The president has seemingly embraced Syria’s new interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda leader who has expressed a desire to bring stability to Syria following the toppling of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad a year ago.Trump again voiced his support for Sharaa on Friday, saying in his social media post that Sharaa is a “man who is working very hard to bring Greatness back to Syria” and has the U.S. leader’s “full support.”
In the last week, U.S. troops had joined with regional partner forces to carry out 10 operations across Iraq and Syria, resulting in the death or detention of 23 suspected Islamic State members, officials said. U.S. forces often use intelligence gathered in such operations to inform future military strikes.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, writing on social media, said Friday’s assault — which he dubbed Operation Hawkeye Strike, an apparent reference to the slain soldiers’ Iowa backgrounds — was “in direct response to the attack” last weekend that claimed the lives of American personnel.
“This is not the beginning of the war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” Hegseth said. He added that anyone who targets Americans “will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”
The Defense Department released imagery Friday night showing munitions being loaded on planes ahead of the strikes. In one photograph, a service member is seen writing a message on one of the shells. It is addressed to the three Americans killed last weekend and says: “May your legacy be remembered.”
On Wednesday, Trump, Hegseth and other senior U.S. officials traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to receive the slain Americans’ remains and meet with their grieving families. The soldiers were members of the Iowa National Guard’s 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, and deployed as part of an enduring mission intended to prevent the Islamic State from regenerating.
The U.S. campaign to counter the Islamic State began in 2014, under President Barack Obama, after the militant group had swept to power and seized numerous major cities across both Syria and Iraq. By the time Obama left office in January 2017, a U.S.-led military coalition had combined with local forces in both countries to liberate more than half of the estimated 40,000 square miles seized by the militants at the height of their power.
The last remaining Islamic State stronghold — the Syrian town of Baghouz — fell in 2019, during Trump’s first term in office. The president has often stated since then that he “completely destroyed” the Islamic State caliphate. But even without controlling territory, the militant group has persisted in smaller numbers.
Suzan Haidamous in Beirut contributed to this report.
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