To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to an internet
browser that
supports HTML5
video
Donald Trump unleashed ‘large-scale’ strikes across Syria – on the identical night that the US justice department published 300,000 pages of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Operation Hawkeye Strike began at 9pm UK time on Friday, with the aim to eliminate ‘ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites’, one 12 months for the reason that country was liberated from the Assad regime.
The attacks got here after two US soldiers and an interpreter were killed last weekend by a lone gunman from the jihadist group in town of Palmyra.
Fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery ‘struck greater than 70 targets at multiple locations across central Syria’, the US Central Command said.
One US official said the strikes were carried out by US F-15 and A-10 jets, together with Apache helicopters and HIMARS rocket systems.
Aircraft from Jordan were also involved in what was described as ‘intense bombardment’.
‘This will not be the start of a war – it’s a declaration of vengeance,’ Pete Hegseth said in a social media post.
‘The USA of America, under president Trump’s leadership, won’t ever hesitate and never relent to defend our people.’
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that ‘not less than five members of the Islamic State group were killed’ in eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor province, including the leader of a cell chargeable for drones in the realm.
A Syrian security source told AFP that the US strikes targeted IS cells within the vast Badia desert including in Homs, Deir Ezzor and Raqa provinces, and didn’t include ground operations.
Many of the targets were in a mountainous area running north of Palmyra including towards Deir Ezzor, the source said, requesting anonymity.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network that the US is ‘inflicting very serious retaliation, just as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible’, and that those that attack Americans ‘WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE’.
He said the Syrian government was fully supportive of the strikes against the Islamic State, warning that fighters ‘will probably be hit harder than you’ve ever been hit before’.
Around 1,800 soldiers from Iowa have been within the Middle East since May 2025 as a part of a seamless military mission to work with local forces to defeat the ISIS.
And roughly 250 of them are in Syria, a part of a complete of about 1,000 UStroops within the country.
Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Disturbing Epstein files are only ‘tip of the iceberg’ as ‘a whole bunch of hundreds’ more due for release
MORE: Everyone seems to be saying the identical thing about Donald Trump’s Patriot Games
MORE: Deadline to release Epstein files looms after years of conspiracy theories