At least five people were killed by major US airstrikes that were launched in Syria on Friday against ISIS targets, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
“The operation left at least five individuals torn pieces, including the leader of a cell and his members who were responsible for launching drones toward the eastern Euphrates region,” the SOHR said.
The strikes were launched in response to a December 13 attack that killed two US National Guard members and an American civilian interpreter in Palmyra, central Syria. US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called the airstrikes a “declaration of vengeance,” but the gunman who killed the three Americans was a member of Syria’s security forces, and ISIS never took responsibility for the attack.
US Central Command said the strikes involved firing more than 100 munitions at over 70 targets in central Syria, and Jordanian aircraft assisted in the strikes, which has since been confirmed by Jordan. CENTCOM said that since the Palmyra attack, the US and “partner forces conducted 10 operations in Syria and Iraq resulting in the deaths or detention of 23 terrorist operatives.”
The SOHR also said that a raid carried out by the US-led coalition on Thursday, a day before the airstrikes, killed one member of an ISIS cell, a woman believed to be the wife of a suspect, and a 14-year-old boy who was hit by a stray bullet during a firefight.
The escalation of US military operations in Syria signals the Trump administration is doubling down on its Syria policy, which includes supporting the new Syrian government, which is led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda commander who was once an ally of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS.
Sharaa’s group of jihadists, known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which took power in Damascus in December 2024, has a similar ideology to ISIS, and membership between the two groups is very fluid. Despite the new government’s ISIS links, it has joined the US-led anti-ISIS coalition, putting US troops operating in Syria at risk of insider attacks.
