On Friday, the US military struck Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria in response to last week’s attack on a Syrian-American patrol in Palmyra, which killed three Americans, bbc.com reports. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X that the strikes, part of Operation Hawk, targeted “ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites.”
“This isn’t the start of a war, it’s a declaration of revenge. Today, we hunted down and killed our enemies. Many of them. And we will continue to do so,” Hegseth added.
US President Donald Trump called the operation “a very serious retaliatory strike” on his social media account, TruthSocial.
On November 10, Trump hosted interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House.
Following the meeting, Syria joined the 88-country international coalition fighting the Islamic State.