The U.S. Army announced Friday, Dec. 19, that it has launched a “large-scale strike” against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria in retaliation for the group’s ambush last week that killed two soldiers and an interpreter, all Americans, in the Syrian province of Homs.
“U.S. forces have initiated a large-scale strike against ISIS infrastructure and weapons caches in Syria. This massive strike follows the attack against U.S. and allied forces in Syria on Dec. 13,” U.S. Central Command said in a brief statement.
U.S. strikes Syria after ambush on soldiers
Tonight, U.S. and Jordanian forces struck 70+ ISIS targets in Syria with 100+ precision munitions. Peace through strength. pic.twitter.com/XWWvfqBBFT
– U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) December 20, 2025
Shortly after the text was published, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the attack on social media and explained that the campaign has been dubbed Operation Hawkeye Attack.
“This is not the start of a war, it’s a declaration of revenge,” Hegseth explains.
“As we said immediately after the brutal attack (of Dec. 13), if they attack Americans, anywhere in the world, they will spend the rest of their short, anguished lives knowing that the United States will hunt them down, find them and eliminate them mercilessly,” the secretary of war added in the text.
According to an anonymous U.S. official quoted by The New York Times, dozens of suspected IS sites in several locations in central Syria were attacked with fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery salvoes and the bombardment is expected to last for several hours.
The two servicemen and translator attacked last Saturday by a lone gunman near the Syrian city of Palmyra were the first Americans to die in the country since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime last year.
Filed under: US strikes Syria
With information from EFE
