The US Military Launches a Large-Scale Attack Against ISIS in Syria

On Friday, the United States began launching extensive airstrikes against the ISIS organization in Syria, fulfilling President Donald Trump's pledge to respond to the killing of two US soldiers in an attack that took place in central Syria last Saturday.

Sources from Al Arabiya/Al Hadath reported that the international coalition fired missiles from the Al-Shaddadi base towards the Syrian city of Raqqa, noting that coalition missiles targeted sites in the Deir ez-Zor desert, with explosions heard in Deir ez-Zor.

Additionally, a US official who requested anonymity due to operational matters said that US fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery shells targeted dozens of suspected ISIS sites in several areas in central Syria, including weapons depots and other buildings used to support the organization's operations.

The official explained that the US air and artillery strikes were expected to continue for several hours and extend until dawn on Saturday local time in Syria, describing them as a "large-scale attack," according to The New York Times.

Social media accounts inside Syria reported hearing explosions across wide areas of the country.

The US soldiers killed last Saturday were the first American casualties in Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime last year.

US and Syrian sources stated that the soldiers were supporting counterterrorism operations against ISIS in the city of Palmyra (Tadmur) in central Syria when they were fired upon by a lone gunman.

The US strikes on Friday, and the possibility of additional counterterrorism operations in the coming days, indicate a sharp military escalation in Syria, at a time when the United States has reduced its military presence there to about 1,000 troops, half the number present at the beginning of the year. The decision to reduce forces came amid changes in the security landscape following the collapse of Assad's government.

However, the attack that occurred last weekend was a stark reminder of the risks in the region and raised questions about the viability of maintaining US forces in Syria.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but initial assessments by the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies suggest ISIS is likely behind it.

Senior US intelligence officials informed Congress this year that ISIS would try to exploit the end of Assad's rule to free between 9,000 and 10,000 of its fighters, in addition to about 26,000 family members detained in northeastern Syria, and revive its capability to plan and carry out attacks.

Despite losing control over large territories, ISIS continues to spread its extremist ideology through secret cells and regional branches outside Syria, as well as online. Over the past year, the organization was behind major attacks in Iran, Russia, and Pakistan.

The Palmyra attack represents the first American losses in Syria since Assad's overthrow a year ago and confirms how ISIS exploited security gaps to target civilians and Syrian government forces.

Last month, US forces and Syrian security forces conducted operations to locate and destroy more than 15 ISIS weapons caches in southern Syria, including the destruction of over 130 mortar shells and rockets, as well as rifles, machine guns, anti-tank mines, and materials used in making improvised explosive devices, according to CENTCOM.

Following last Saturday's attack, partner forces carried out 10 operations against ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq, resulting in the killing of about two militants. More importantly, these operations enabled allied forces to gather intelligence that helped US analysts identify or refine targets used in Friday's strikes, according to the US official.