Two US Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed on Saturday in the central Syrian town of Palmyra by an attacker who targeted a convoy of American and Syrian forces.
Jordan’s army participated in the U.S. strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria on Friday, state-owned Jordan TV said on Saturday.
The US military launched large-scale strikes against dozens of Islamic State targets in Syria on Friday in retaliation for an attack on American personnel.
US RETALIATES KILLING OF MILITARY PERSONNEL
President Donald Trump had vowed to retaliate after a suspected ISIS attack killed US personnel last weekend in Syria.
OPERATION HAWKEYE STRIKE
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strikes targeted “ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites” and that the operation was “OPERATION HAWKEYE STRIKE.”
“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” Hegseth said. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue,” he added.
Trump said on social media that the Syrian government fully supported the strikes and that the US was inflicting “very serious retaliation”.
At a speech in North Carolina on Friday night, Trump called it a “massive” blow against the ISIS members that the US blames for the December 13 attack on coalition forces.
“We hit the ISIS thugs in Syria. … It was very successful,” Trump said at a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
MORE THAN 70 IS TARGETS HIT
US Central Command said the strikes hit more than 70 targets across central Syria, adding that Jordanian fighter jets supported the operation.
One US official said the strikes were carried out by US F-15 and A-10 jets, along with Apache helicopters and HIMARS rocket systems.
IS ATTACK ON US MILITARY PERSONNEL
Two US Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed on Saturday in the central Syrian town of Palmyra by an attacker who targeted a convoy of American and Syrian forces before being shot dead, according to the US military. Three other US soldiers were also wounded in the attack.
About 1,000 U.S. troops remain in Syria.
The Syrian Interior Ministry has described the attacker as a member of the Syrian security forces suspected of sympathising with the Islamic State.
