The US Central Command on Saturday said it conducted 10 retaliatory strikes against more than 30 ISIS targets in Syria between February 3 and 12.
“US forces struck ISIS infrastructure and weapons storage targets with precision munitions delivered by fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and unmanned aircraft,” the military said.
The US Central Command said the strikes were part of the continuing Operation Hawkeye Strike, which was launched in response to a December 13 attack on US and Syrian forces in Palmyra that resulted in the deaths of two American soldiers and an interpreter.
More than 50 ISIS fighters have been killed and more than 100 infrastructure targets have been struck over the course of two months of operations, the US Central Command said.
Despite the continuing operation, US forces departed Al Tanf military base and withdrew to Jordan, the US Central Command confirmed on Thursday.
The outpost was established in 2014 as a key US base for co-ordinating and carrying out operations by the global coalition against ISIS. While much of the American presence in Syria was in the Kurdish-held north-east, the US also co-ordinated with an opposition unit at Al Tanf, which remained outside of the control of the former Assad regime.
Since the Assad regime’s fall in December 2024, Washington has been reassessing its presence in Syria, boosting co-ordination with the central government. Damascus officially joined the global coalition against ISIS last year, as Washington shifted its focus from teaming up with Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria and encouraged them to join the centrally controlled army.
ISIS prisoners from the camps that were under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces are also being moved to Iraq under a US Central Command operation.
Iraq's Justice Ministry on Friday said it had received most of the 7,000 prisoners scheduled to be transferred from Syria. More than 3,000 Syrians are among the 27 nationalities, including Europeans, of the detainees.
