US Central Command said in a press release on Tuesday that its forces and partners “killed or captured nearly 25 ISIS operatives” in Syria since the US launched major airstrikes in the country on December 19.
The December 19 bombing was a response to the December 13 attack in Palmyra, central Syria, that killed two members of the Iowa National Guard and an American civilian interpreter. The US said the strikes targeted ISIS, but the gunman who killed the three Americans was a member of the Syrian government’s security forces, and ISIS never took credit for the attack.
CENTCOM did not offer a casualty estimate for the December 19 strikes, which it said involved US and Jordanian forces firing over 100 munitions and striking 70 targets. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has said the attacks killed at least five people, including the leader of an ISIS cell.
Regarding the operations that followed the December 19 bombing, CENTCOM said the US and its allies “killed at least seven ISIS members and captured the remainder during 11 missions conducted December 20-29.” The US’s partners in Syria include the Kurdish-led SDF and now the Syrian government, which is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an offshoot of al-Qaeda.
US troops are now working alongside government fighters in Syria, putting them at risk of more insider attacks. Many foreign jihadists have been absorbed into the Syrian military, and according to reports from Syria, it’s suspected that hundreds of former ISIS fighters have also joined.
According to a report from the SOHR, an airdrop operation in northeastern Syria conducted by the US-led coalition and Syrian government forces on December 23 targeted suspects believed to be affiliated with ISIS. The report said that clashes erupted between the two sides, leaving a member of an ISIS cell and his mother dead. On December 18, SOHR reported a similar operation led to clashes that killed an ISIS member, a woman, and a 14-year-old boy.