The United States launched airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria on Friday night, in what the administration described as retaliation for the December 13 shooting in Palmyra that killed two U.S. soldiers and an interpreter. U.S. officials claim the attack was carried out by an ISIS-affiliated gunman.
President Donald Trump announced the strikes on Truth Social, stating that the United States was “inflicting very serious retaliation” on those responsible for the killings. The strikes have been named Operation Hawkeye Strike.
According to U.S. Central Command, forces struck more than 70 targets at several locations across central Syria, including fighters, infrastructure and weapons storage facilities connected to ISIS. Early reports indicated that many of the strikes were concentrated near Palmyra.
While the administration framed the strikes as a response to ISIS terrorism, U.S. officials have not acknowledged that the gunman responsible for the Palmyra attack was an officer in Syria’s Internal Security Forces who had previously been flagged by Syrian authorities for possible extremist sympathies. The revelation complicates the narrative of a lone ISIS gunman presented by the White House and CENTCOM on the day of the attack.
Facing questions this week about the continued U.S. deployment in Syria, Trump responded that troops were there to “ensure peace,” adding that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharra was upset about the attack and “working on it.” The comments renewed scrutiny of Trump’s relationship with al-Sharra, a former leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, who fought U.S. forces in Iraq in the 2000s.
Critics, including some Trump supporters, see the U.S. military presence in Syria and Trump’s rapport with al-Sharra as a departure from his “America First” messaging and his repeated promises to withdraw American troops from Middle East conflicts, while his alignment with a former Al-Qaeda leader has been seen as an insult to his mostly Christan base.