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21-12-2025
WASHINGTON/ ROCKY MOUNT: The United States military “hit the ISIS (ISIL) thugs in Syria”, President Donald Trump has said, a week after two US soldiers and an interpreter were killed in Syria’s Palmyra city.
In a speech 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 media 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 drones in the area.
A Syrian security source told media 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.
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 social media early on Saturday.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said earlier that US forces had targeted “ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites”, adding that the attack was named Operation Hawkeye Strike.
“This is not the beginning of a war, it is a declaration of vengeance,” Hegseth said in a post on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.”
Journalist Ayman Oghanna, reporting from Damascus, said the strikes hit central and northeastern parts of the country. Local sources in Palmyra and Raqqa told media they heard the sounds of fighter jets and huge explosions throughout the night.
One US official said the operation struck 70 targets holding ISIL infrastructure and weapons.
US deploys ‘fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery’
The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for operations in the Middle East, said it deployed “fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery” to launch “more than 100 precision munitions targeting known ISIS infrastructure and weapons sites”. It did not provide further details on the exact locations or casualties.
CENTCOM said that “the Jordanian Armed Forces also supported with fighter aircraft”, a claim that the army backed in the day following the strikes.
The army participated “to prevent extremist organizations from exploiting these areas as launching pads to threaten the security of Syria’s neighbors”, it said in a statement.
In February 2015, ISIL burned a Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot alive in a cage in Syria after capturing him when his plane crashed a few months earlier. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
