American President Donald Trump announced this Friday, December 19, a “massive” operation against the Islamic State group in Syria. At least five ISIS members were killed.
Donald Trump declared this Friday evening, December 19, that the Islamic State group was targeted by “very heavy reprisals” in Syria, after an attack which cost the lives of two American soldiers and an interpreter almost a week ago.
“We are striking very hard against ISIS strongholds,” the American president wrote on Truth Social, shortly after the Pentagon announced the start of a “massive” operation which left at least five members of the Islamic State group dead.
“Eliminating fighters from the Islamic State group
The American army has begun an operation in Syria to “eliminate fighters of the Islamic State group, infrastructure and weapons sites,” Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said on X.
It is a “direct response” and a “declaration of revenge” after the attack which cost the lives of two American soldiers and a translator in Syria on Saturday, he added, asserting: “Today we hunted down and killed enemies. Many enemies. And we will continue.”
Fighter planes, helicopters and artillery struck “more than 70 targets in multiple locations in central Syria,” said the US military command for the Middle East, Centcom.
He said the operation began at 4:00 p.m. Washington time (9:00 p.m. GMT) and that “more than 100 precision munitions” had been used against positions of the Islamic State group.
Shooting in the desert
The strikes were carried out in the desert near the city of Homs and in rural areas near Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, a Syrian security source told AFP.
The explosions were followed by “bursts of medium-caliber gunfire in the desert” southwest of Raqqa, a provincial official said, adding that these are areas under the control of the Syrian government.
The latter “reiterates its strong commitment to fighting IS and ensuring that it does not benefit from any refuge on Syrian territory,” said the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement published on X shortly after the American strikes, without mentioning them directly.
Centcom says that since Saturday’s attack on its troops, “the United States and its allied forces have conducted 10 operations in Syria and Iraq, resulting in the death or detention of 23 terrorists.”
First time
The man who killed three Americans in the desert region of Palmyra has been identified as a member of the Syrian security forces.
This is the first time that such an event has been reported in Syria since the takeover, a year ago, of an Islamist coalition which has made a rapprochement with the United States.
The Islamic State jihadist group had controlled the Palmyra region before being defeated in Syria by an international coalition in 2019. Despite its defeat, its fighters withdrawn into the vast Syrian desert continue to carry out attacks occasionally.
During the visit of the Syrian interim president, Ahmad al-Shareh, to Washington last month, Damascus joined the international anti-jihadist coalition led by the United States.
American forces in Syria are notably deployed in areas under Kurdish control in the north, as well as in the Al-Tanf base, near the Jordanian border.
The return to power of Donald Trump, generally skeptical about the deployment of American soldiers abroad, raises the question of maintaining this military presence.
The Pentagon announced in April that the United States would halve the number of American troops in Syria, the current total number of which is not officially known.
