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DEVELOPING STORY<\/strong>DEVELOPING STORY, <\/span><\/p>\n US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says attacks are \u2018a declaration of vengeance\u2019, and \u2018lots\u2019 of fighters have been killed.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The United States military is \u201cstriking very seriously against ISIS [ISIL] strongholds in Syria\u201d, President Donald Trump said, a week after two US soldiers and an interpreter were killed in Syria\u2019s Palmyra city.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of ISIS\u2019s vicious killing of brave American Patriots in Syria\u2026 I am hereby announcing that the United States is inflicting very serious retaliation, just as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible,\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Trump said that Syria\u2019s government, which was formed after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in late 2024, was \u201cfully in support\u201d of the US military operation.<\/p>\n Syria\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also repeated its commitment to combating ISIL and said it \u201cinvites the United States and member states of the international coalition to support these efforts\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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,\u201d the ministry said in the statement shared on X early on Saturday.<\/p>\n US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said earlier that US forces had targeted \u201cISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites\u201d, adding that the attack was named Operation Hawkeye Strike.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not the beginning of a war \u2014 it is a declaration of vengeance,\u201d Hegseth said in a post on social media. \u201cToday, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.\u201d<\/p>\n Two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Reuters news agency that the air strikes were against dozens of ISIL targets across central Syria.<\/p>\n Details on the number of people injured or killed were not immediately available.<\/p>\n The US military\u2019s Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for operations in the Middle East, said it deployed \u201cfighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery\u201d to launch \u201cmore than 100 precision munitions targeting known ISIS infrastructure and weapons sites\u201d. But it did not provide further details on the locations or casualties.<\/p>\n CENTCOM said that \u201cthe Jordanian Armed Forces also supported with fighter aircraft\u201d.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera\u2019s Rosiland Jordan, reporting earlier from Washington, DC, said the Syrian government appeared to have \u201csigned off\u201d on the US operation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know whether any Syrian defence forces are taking part in this retaliatory action, but the US does consider it important to try to help Syria move beyond the Assad regime\u2019s years of dictatorship,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn order to do so, getting rid of what the US considers a national security threat \u2013 members of ISIL \u2013 is part of helping Syria move into its next phase as a sovereign country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration has, in recent weeks, put a lot of stock in trying to shore up the government of the new interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and\u2026 trying to keep ISIL away from civilian and military targets in Syria \u2013 as it tries to rebuild the government, as well as civil society \u2013 is a key operation,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Three Americans \u2013 two US National Guard members and a civilian interpreter \u2013 were killed last weekend in the central Syrian town of Palmyra by an attacker who targeted a convoy of US and Syrian forces before being shot dead, according to the US military.<\/p>\n Three US soldiers were also wounded in the attack. The US blamed that attack on ISIL and promised to retaliate.<\/p>\n About 1,000 US troops are stationed in Syria as part of a years-long operation targeting the remnants of ISIL forces in the region.<\/p>\n A US-led coalition has also carried out air strikes and ground operations in Syria targeting ISIL suspects in recent months, often with the involvement of Syria\u2019s security forces.<\/p>\n Syria\u2019s government has been cooperating in the US-led fight against ISIL. An agreement on cooperation was reached last month when President al-Sharaa\u00a0met with Trump at the White House.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says attacks are \u2018a declaration of vengeance\u2019, and \u2018lots\u2019 of fighters have been killed. The United States military is \u201cstriking very seriously against ISIS [ISIL] strongholds in Syria\u201d, President Donald Trump said, a week after two US soldiers and an interpreter were killed in Syria\u2019s Palmyra city. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
US deploys \u2018fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery\u2019<\/h2>\n
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