The U.S. army launched retaliatory strikes on Friday in opposition to dozens of ISIS targets in Syria, in response to an announcement issued by Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth on social media.
Greater than 70 ISIS targets had been struck in Friday’s assaults, in response to a U.S. official, by a mixture of fighter jets, assault helicopters, and artillery hearth.
Hegseth mentioned “Operation Hawkeye Strike” was carried out in Syria “to get rid of ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons websites in direct response to the assault on U.S. forces that occurred on Dec. 13 in Palmyra, Syria.
CENTCOM forces launched fighter jets, assault helicopters and different property to conduct a large-scale strike in Syria, Dec. 19, 2025.
@CENTCOM/X
“This isn’t the start of a conflict — It’s a declaration of vengeance,” mentioned Hegseth. “The US of America, beneath President Trump’s management, won’t ever hesitate and by no means relent to defend our folks.”
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth listens throughout an occasion on the State Division, Dec. 8, 2025, in Washington.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
The strikes in Syria are in retaliation for the deaths on Saturday of three People in Palmyra, Syria, by what CENTCOM mentioned was a lone ISIS gunman who was later killed.
President Donald Trump mentioned the strikes had been “inflicting very critical retaliation, simply as I promised, on the murderous terrorists accountable” for the assault.
Trump added that the strikes had been taking place “in opposition to ISIS strongholds in Syria” and that Syria’s new authorities is “is absolutely in assist.”
CENTCOM forces launched fighter jets, assault helicopters and different property to conduct a large-scale strike in Syria, Dec. 19, 2025.
@CENTCOM/X
Stories from inside Syria, together with the monitoring company the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that explosions had been heard in areas of the nation.
The three fatalities in Saturday’s assault in Palmyra included two Iowa Nationwide Guardsmen and a U.S. civilian interpreter. Three different Iowa Nationwide Guardsmen had been injured within the assault.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after stepping off Air Drive One at Joint Base Andrews, December 17, 2025 upon return from Dover Air Drive Base in Delaware.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Friday’s large-scale retaliatory strikes concerned F-15 and A-10 fighter jets, assault helicopters and the usage of HIMARS rocket artillery, in response to a U.S. official, who mentioned they’d struck 70 targets, together with “ISIS weapon areas and infrastructure in central Syria.”
CENTCOM forces launched fighter jets, assault helicopters and different property to conduct a large-scale strike in Syria, Dec. 19, 2025.
@CENTCOM/X
The official added that the retaliatory strikes had been supposed to ship “a big blow” to ISIS remnant forces in Syria, their infrastructure and to get rid of ISIS weapons areas.
In keeping with the newest U.S. intelligence estimate, there are nonetheless between 1,500 to three,000 ISIS militants nonetheless working in Syria and Iraq.
Forward of Friday’s strikes, the official mentioned that U.S. companions led 10 operations, with U.S. army assist, that captured or killed 23 ISIS militants. The raids additionally helped glean intelligence that knowledgeable future concentrating on operations mentioned the official.
On this Jan. 9, 2025, file photograph, US forces patrol in Syria’s northeastern metropolis Qamishli, within the Hasakeh province.
Delil Souleiman/AFP through Getty Photographs, FILE
There are at the moment 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria, the majority of them positioned in jap Syria, with the persevering with mission stop a resurgence of ISIS which was defeated militarily in 2019.
Between 100 to 150 of the U.S. troops in Syria are based mostly at At Tanq Garrison, a distant outpost positioned on Syria’s border with Jordan. The Iowa Nationwide Guardsmen focused in Saturday’s assault had been based mostly at that outpost, which was visited on Friday by Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, in response to a supply acquainted with the go to.
President Donald Trump and Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth salute as members of the army carry switch circumstances of the stays of Iowa Nationwide Guard members killed in Syria, Sgt. Edgar Torres Tovar and Sgt. William Howard at Dover Air Drive Base in Dover, Delaware, Dec. 17, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
The Iowa Nationwide Guardsmen focused in Saturday’s assault had been based mostly at that outpost, which was visited on Friday by Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, in response to a supply acquainted with the go to.
Cooper acknowledged the troops there for his or her actions beneath hearth and in addition mentioned the strikes that had been to happen on Friday.
Sgt. William “Nate” Howard, Sgt. Edgar Torres Tovar, and their U.S. civilian interpreter, Ayad Mansoor Sakat, had been killed in an ambush by a lone ISIS gunman on Saturday as they had been finishing up a key chief engagement, in response to a CENTCOM assertion.
They had been the primary U.S. army fight deaths in Syria since 2019.
Within the wake of Saturday’s ambush, U.S. Central Command offered info of the frequency of anti-ISIS operations in Syria noting that since July the U.S. and its associate forces had carried out 80 operations in opposition to ISIS targets and detained 119 ISIS militants and killed 14.
In November alone, U.S. and Syrian forces collectively destroyed 15 ISIS weapons caches in southern Syria, it mentioned.
