LONDON: The United States launched precision strikes against ISIS strongholds in Syria, agencies reported Saturday.
The United States military “hit the ISIS [ISIL] thugs in Syria”, President Donald Trump told reporters, a week after two US soldiers and an interpreter were killed in Syria’s Palmyra city.
In a speech Friday evening in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Trump said he “ordered a massive strike on the terrorists that killed our three great patriots last week”.
“It was very successful. It was precision,” the president added. “We hit every site flawlessly and we are restoring peace through strength all over the world.”
Jordan’s air force also carried out strikes as part of the operation in southern Syria, the army confirmed Saturday.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the AFP news agency that “at least five members” of ISIL were killed in eastern Syria’s Deir Az Zor province, including the leader of a cell responsible for managing drones in the area.
A Syrian security source told AFP that the US strikes targeted ISIL cells in Syria’s vast Badia desert including in Homs, Deir Az Zor and Raqqa provinces, and did not include ground operations.
Trump separately wrote on his Truth Social platform that Syria’s government, which was formed after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in late 2024, was “fully in support” of the US military operation, targeting the “terrorists”.
Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also repeated its commitment to combatting ISIL and said it “invites the United States and member states of the international coalition to support these efforts”.
“The Syrian Arab Republic reiterates its steadfast commitment to fighting ISIS and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory, and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat,” the ministry said in the statement shared on X early on Saturday.
Source: AFP
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