US Central Command said on Wednesday that its forces conducted five strikes against ISIS in Syria from January 27 to February, while the US is also backing the Syrian government, which is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an offshoot of al-Qaeda with a similar ideology to ISIS.
“CENTCOM forces located and destroyed an ISIS communication site, critical logistics node, and weapons storage facilities with 50 precision munitions delivered by fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and unmanned aircraft,” CENTCOM said in a press release.
CENTCOM said that pressure was also being applied to ISIS by “partner forces,” which include government forces, who reportedly released ISIS fighters held in prison camps in territory the government recently took from the Kurdish-led SDF, the US’s previous main partner in the fight against ISIS.
At the end of January, CENTCOM began an operation to move thousands of ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq after the government took control of the prisons, suggesting the US doesn’t trust HTS to guard the ISIS fighters. Iraq’s government said this week that more than 1,300 ISIS fighters have been transferred so far.
CENTCOM said in its press release that the strikes against ISIS were part of “Operation Hawkeye Strike,” an operation launched in response to US Iowa National Guard soldiers and an American civilian interpreter being killed in Palmyra, central Syria, on December 13. The US blamed ISIS for the attack, though the gunman was a member of Syria’s security forces.
“After nearly two months of targeted operations, more than 50 ISIS terrorists have been killed or captured,” CENTCOM said. The command also said that it killed an ISIS leader on January 16, who it claimed was connected to the attack in Palmyra.
