US forces unleashed a wave of airstrikes against ISIS in Syria on Friday, the White House confirms.
The move delivers on President Trump’s promise to retaliate for the killing of two US Army soldiers and an interpreter during a terrorist ambush in the country’s central region last weekend.
American forces struck over 70 targets in the country linked to ISIS, a US official told Fox News.
‘Because of ISIS’s vicious killing of brave American Patriots in Syria, whose beautiful souls I welcomed home to American soil earlier this week in a very dignified ceremony, I am hereby announcing that the United States is inflicting very serious retaliation,’ Trump said in a post on Truth Social Friday evening.
The bombardment is reportedly being carried out by US Airforce F-15E Strike Eagles and A-10C Thunderbolts alongside Army helicopters and artillery rocket systems.
Although officials said ‘numerous’ militants were killed, full casualty numbers were not provided on Friday evening.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posting on X, called it ‘Operation Hawkeye Strike,’ and labeled the actions as a ‘declaration of vengeance.’
Military aircraft and artillery were reportedly used to level arms storage sites and other facilities associated with the group, an American source with knowledge told the New York Times.
US forces unleashed a wave of airstrikes against ISISin Syria on Friday
American forces carried out a wave of air and ground attacks in central Syria, striking numerous locations linked to ISIS
Islamic State fighter pictured waving a flag while standing on captured government fighter jet in Raqqa, Syria
‘Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue,’ Hegseth added.
Across Syria, social media accounts on X first reported explosions and across the country, heard from Palmyra to Deir Ezzor.
Strikes were also reported in the Eastern Raqqa desert.
The intended targets included weapons storage locations and ISIS infrastructure.
The soldiers who were killed last Saturday were the first Americans to die in the country since Bashar al-Assad was removed from power last year. They were helping fight the Islamic State near Palmyra, a city in central Syria.
US officials named the two troops who died in Syria as Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, from Des Moines, Iowa, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa.
Friday’s attacks by US forces point to a major step-up in military action in Syria, even as the administration maintains a much smaller footprint of roughly 1,000 troops –half of the US footprint since the start of the year.
Jordanian and Syrian Armed forces are reportedly helping out the US Air-Force and army in Friday’s strikes.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa visited the White House last month in what was the first visit to the White House by a Syrian head of state since 1946.
In his Truth Social post, Trump said Al-Sharaa supported the strikes.
The president said terrorists who threaten or attack the US ‘will be hit harder than you have ever been hit before.’
Skeptical Democrats and liberal commentators were quick to suggest that the timing of Trump’s air campaign was meant to distract from his Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files, which dropped just hours before.
But US officials said the airstrikes built on ground raids in Iraq and Syria earlier in the week that captured or killed two dozen suspected ISIS-linked operatives.
