US fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery hit more than 70 targets across central Syria on Friday, the Pentagon said, in a major military operation against ISIS.
"We will continue to relentlessly pursue terrorists who seek to harm Americans and our partners across the region," said Admiral Brad Cooper in a statement after strikes that US President Donald Trump described as "very serious retaliation" for a recent attack that killed three Americans.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strikes targeted "ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites" and that the operation was "OPERATION HAWKEYE STRIKE."
"This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance," Hegseth said. "Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue," he added.
Trump said on social media that the Syrian government fully supported the strikes and that the US was inflicting "very serious retaliation."
At a speech in North Carolina on Friday night, Trump called it a "massive" blow against the ISIS members that the US blames for the Dec. 13 attack on coalition forces.
"We hit the ISIS thugs in Syria. ... It was very successful," Trump said at a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
US Central Command said the strikes hit more than 70 targets across central Syria, adding that Jordanian fighter jets supported the operation.
One US official said the strikes were carried out by US F-15 and A-10 jets, along with Apache helicopters and HIMARS rocket systems.
Syria reiterated its steadfast commitment to fighting ISIS and ensuring that it has "no safe havens on Syrian territory," according to a statement by the foreign ministry.
Two US Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed on Saturday in the central Syrian town of Palmyra by an attacker who targeted a convoy of American and Syrian forces before being shot dead, according to the US military. Three other US soldiers were also wounded in the attack.
About 1,000 US troops remain in Syria.
The Syrian Interior Ministry has described the attacker as a member of the Syrian security forces suspected of sympathizing with ISIS.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP on Saturday that at least five ISIS members were killed in eastern Syria's Deir Ezzor province, including the leader of a cell responsible for drones in the area.
A Syrian security source told AFP that the US strikes targeted ISIS cells in Syria's vast Badia desert including in Homs, Deir Ezzor and Raqa provinces, and did not include ground operations.
Most of the targets were in a mountainous area running north of Palmyra including towards Deir Ezzor, the source said, requesting anonymity.
