Trump Syria ISIS Retaliation

Donald Trump said Friday that the Islamic State group was being targeted by “very heavy retaliation” in Syria, after an attack that claimed the lives of two American soldiers and an interpreter almost a week ago.

We strike very hard against ISIS strongholdswrote the American president on Truth Socialshortly after the Pentagon announced the start of an operation massive.

The American army began an operation in Syria to eliminate Islamic State group fighters, infrastructure and weapons sitesPentagon chief Pete Hegseth told X.

This 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. Lots of enemies. And we will continue.

Fighter jets, helicopters and artillery struck more than 70 targets in multiple locations in central Syriaspecified the American military command for the Middle East, Centcom.

He said the operation began at 4 p.m. Washington time 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, theAFP a Syrian security source.

Explosions followed 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 ISIS and ensuring that it does not benefit from any refuge on Syrian territory, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said 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 carried out 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Despite its defeat, its fighters withdrawn into the vast Syrian desert continue to carry out attacks occasionally.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-Charaa, 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 strength of which is not officially known.