THE NEW YORK TIMES: United States strikes Islamic State targets in Syria to ‘avenge’ soldiers’ deaths

The United States began major airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria on Friday, fulfilling President Donald Trump’s vow to avenge the deaths of two US Army soldiers and a civilian US interpreter killed in a terrorist attack in the central part of the country last Saturday.

US fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery salvos struck dozens of suspected Islamic State sites at several locations across central Syria, including weapons storage areas and other buildings to support operations, according to a US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

The US air and artillery attacks were expected to last several hours, deep into early Saturday morning in Syria, in what the US official said would be “a massive attack.”

Social media accounts in Syria reported explosions across wide swaths of the country.

The soldiers slain last Saturday were the first American casualties in the country since the fall of dictator Bashar Assad last year. They were supporting counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State group in Palmyra, a city in central Syria, when they came under fire from a lone gunman, US and Syrian officials said.

The US strikes Friday, and the likelihood of more counterterrorism operations in the coming days, signal a sharp military escalation in Syria at a time when the United States has reduced its presence there to about 1,000 troops, half of what it started with at the beginning of the year.

The decision to draw down forces had reflected the shifting security environment in Syria after Assad’s government collapsed.

But the assault last weekend was a stark reminder of the danger in the region and the quandary of whether to keep US forces there at all.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, though initial assessments suggest that it was most likely carried out by the Islamic State group, according to the Pentagon and US intelligence officials.

Top US intelligence officials told Congress this year that the Islamic State group would try to exploit the end of the Assad government to free 9,000 to 10,000 of the militant group’s fighters and about 26,000 of their family members now detained in northeastern Syria, and revive its ability to plot and carry out attacks.

Although it no longer holds much territory, the Islamic State group is still spreading its radical ideology through clandestine cells and regional affiliates outside Syria and online. Last year, the group was behind major attacks in Iran, Russia and Pakistan.

The deadly attacks against the US soldiers also highlighted the challenges for the nascent Syrian government, led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, as it steers a deeply fractured country emerging from nearly 14 years of civil war.

Since his rebel coalition toppled the Assad government, al-Sharaa has had to contend with threats from the Islamic State group and various other armed groups, while simultaneously building a new national military.

In the months immediately after al-Sharaa took power, the United States conducted scores of airstrikes on Islamic State redoubts in the Syrian desert, which appeared to tamp down the immediate threat.

But in the past month, particularly after al-Sharaa publicly embraced an international campaign to combat the group, attacks have increased, analysts said.

The attack in Palmyra marked the first US casualties in Syria since Assad was ousted from power a year ago, and underscored how the Islamic State group has exploited security gaps to target civilians and al-Sharaa’s forces.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth forcefully condemned last Saturday’s attack, writing in a social media post, “If you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”

Three other American service members and two members of Syrian security forces were also wounded in the attack, which US officials described as an ambush.

The Syrian gunman who killed the soldiers — two members of the Iowa National Guard — and an American civilian interpreter was a member of Syria’s security forces who was set to be dismissed over his extremist views, the officials said. In honor of the slain soldiers’ home state, the Pentagon is calling the mission that started on Friday “Operation Hawkeye Strike.”

US military officials said Friday that the strikes would build on the nearly 80 missions since July to eliminate terrorist operatives in Syria, including Islamic State remnants. In a statement this week, the Pentagon’s Central Command said the group had inspired at least 11 plots or attacks against targets in the United States over the past year.

In response, the command said its operations resulted in 119 insurgents being detained and 14 killed over the last six months.

Last month, US military and Syrian security personnel carried out missions to locate and destroy more than 15 Islamic State weapons caches in southern Syria. The operations also destroyed more than 130 mortars and rockets, multiple rifles, machine guns, anti-tank mines and materials for building improvised explosive devices, Central Command said.

After last Saturday’s attack, partner forces conducted 10 assaults on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq that killed at least two insurgents but more important, allowed the allied soldiers to recover information that helped American analysts locate or refine targets picked for Friday’s strikes, the US official said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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