Politics
NEW: U.S. Forces Launch Dozens Of Strikes Against ISIS Targets In Syria
U.S. forces and coalition partners launched an intense barrage of air and artillery strikes against Islamic State (ISIS) targets in the Syrian desert on Friday night. The strikes come roughly one week after two U.S. soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed by an ISIS gunman who had infiltrated the Syrian government’s patchwork security forces, a force that is flush with extremist elements.
The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) on Friday initiated Operation Hawkeye Strike around 4 p.m. Eastern Time. The strikes utilized a combination of fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery from CENTCOM forces, with additional support from Jordanian Armed Forces aircraft.
Over 100 precision-guided munitions were deployed during the operation. These munitions struck more than 70 targets identified as ISIS infrastructure and weapons storage sites, the Pentagon said.
The targets were spread across multiple locations in central Syria, focusing on areas where ISIS maintains operational capabilities. According to official reports, the purpose was to degrade ISIS’s ability to plan and execute attacks against US and partner forces.
“This operation is critical to preventing ISIS from inspiring terrorist plots and attacks against the U.S. homeland,” said CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper. “We will continue to relentlessly pursue terrorists who seek to harm Americans and our partners across the region.”
The strikes were launched in response to a December 13 ambush targeting a joint convoy of Syrian and coalition forces, which took place near a military base in the town of Palmyra. A single gunman, suspected to be affiliated with ISIS, killed two U.S. soldiers and a civilian interpreter while wounding three others.
The two US soldiers killed were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa. Both were members of the Iowa National Guard.
The civilian interpreter was Ayad Mansoor Sakat, 54, of Macomb Township, Michigan. Sakat, born in Bakhdida, Iraq, had been working as a US interpreter in Syria.
Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, both members of the Iowa National Guard, were killed in the December 13 ambush
In the days following the December 13 ambush, US and partner forces had already carried out 10 separate operations in Syria and Iraq, resulting in the death or detention of 23 terrorist operatives. Over the past six months, more than 80 such operations have been conducted in Syria to address threats to US and regional security.
“We had three great patriots terminated by bad people, and not the Syrian government, it was ISIS,” President Trump said following the attack.
Syria is currently governed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former leader of Al Qaeda’s official offshoot in Syria. The group took on several different names, the last being Hayat Tahrir-al Sham (HTS), and has been implicated in several war crimes over the course of the 13-year civil war in Syria.
This includes beheadings, massacres of prisoners and civilians, as well as destruction of religious sites belonging to Syria’s religious minorities.
Al-Sharra, who was then known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani, attempted to win support from western governments in the late 2010’s by stating that his group’s jihadist days are in the past. His government has since normalized relations with several western and regional powers, including the United States, which established diplomatic ties with Syria for the first time in decades earlier this year. Al-Sharra met with President Donald Trump back in November, who expressed optimism about his leadership.
Groups loyal to the patchwork Syrian government have committed several well-documented atrocities since taking power last winter, however, including a brutal massacre of Alawites in the nation’s coastal provinces in March 2025. Bashar al-Assad is a member of the sect, as were a number of senior officials in his government.
Widespread massacres have also been committed against Syria’s Druze minority, while attacks have also been reported against Christians and other minority groups.
Despite the volatile situation, the U.S. has worked with the Syrian government in hopes of somehow stabilizing the war-torn country. “We don’t have an embassy in Syria. It’s operating out of Türkiye. But we need to help them. We want to help that government succeed because the alternative is full-scale civil war and chaos, which would of course destabilize the entire region,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers this past June.
