U.S. forces struck more than 70 Islamic State group targets across central Syria in what President Donald Trump called “very serious retaliation” for a Dec. 13 attack in Palmyra that killed three Americans, U.S. Central Command said.
The return strikes hit multiple sites with fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery, CENTCOM said, employing more than 100 precision munitions against known Islamic State infrastructure and weapons depots. U.S. officials said a lone gunman affiliated with the militant group carried out the Palmyra shooting, which unfolded near the UNESCO-listed ruins that jihadists once controlled.
- Advertisement -
“The operation employed more than 100 precision munitions targeting known ISIS infrastructure and weapons sites,” CENTCOM said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group.
In the days since the Palmyra attack, U.S. and allied forces conducted 10 operations in Syria and Iraq that resulted in the deaths or detention of 23 “terrorist operatives,” CENTCOM added, without specifying their affiliations.
Syria’s foreign ministry, without directly addressing the U.S. strikes, said in a post on X that Damascus remains committed to fighting the Islamic State group, ensuring it has no safe havens on Syrian territory and intensifying operations “wherever it poses a threat.”
The Americans killed in Palmyra were identified as Iowa National Guard sergeants William Howard and Edgar Torres Tovar, and Ayad Mansoor Sakat, a Michigan civilian who worked as an interpreter, according to U.S. authorities.
Trump, Mr. Hegseth and the nation’s top military officer, Gen. Dan Caine, attended a solemn ceremony Wednesday marking the return of the fallen to the United States.
Syrian officials said the shooting was the first such incident since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad last December. Interior ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba said the assailant was a member of the security forces who was about to be dismissed for “extremist Islamist ideas.”
The U.S. personnel targeted in Palmyra were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the international mission to dismantle Islamic State networks that seized broad swaths of Syrian and Iraqi territory in 2014 before losing its hold through a combination of local ground offensives and sustained coalition airpower.
Although the group no longer holds major population centers, it maintains cells in Syria’s desert expanses and has continued to mount attacks against security forces and civilians, according to regional officials.
Trump has long expressed skepticism about an open-ended U.S. presence in Syria, ordering a withdrawal during his first term but ultimately leaving a residual force. In April, the Pentagon announced plans to halve the number of U.S. personnel in Syria in the following months, and U.S. envoy for Syria Tom Barrack said in June that Washington would eventually reduce its bases in the country to one.
U.S. forces are currently deployed in Syria’s Kurdish-led northeast as well as at al-Tanf, near the Jordanian border.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
