President Donald Trump has vowed that, if necessary, he will launch more military onslaughts on terrorists following the U.S.’s “massive” air strike against 70 Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria on Friday.
“All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A..” the president warned in a Truth Social post.
Among the IS sites hit were “fighter compounds, weapon dumps and other infrastructure, with Jordanian fighter jets supporting what was dubbed Operation Hawkeye Strike,” the Daily Mail reported.
Friday’s air assault came after “a suspected IS member killed two US troops and an American civilian interpreter last week,” according to the report.
Fox News showed a photo of a soldier writing the names of the fallen servicemembers on a weapon headed for the bombardment.
Speaking at a rally in North Carolina after the operation, the president told supporters, “We hit the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) thugs. It was very successful. We hit every site flawlessly and we are restoring peace through strength all over the world.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later posted on X:
This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people.
As we said directly following the savage attack, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.
“Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies,” he added. “Lots of them. And we will continue.”
As Breitbart News reported Saturday, a Syrian security official, also requesting anonymity, told one news outlet that “the bombardment was intense” and had lasted around five hours.
According to that same report, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the news outlet AFP that “at least five members of the Islamic State group were killed” in eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor province, including the leader of a cell responsible for drones in the area.
The December 13 attack killed two National Guard members and an interpreter on a convoy in the town of Palmyra.
Slain were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa, and Ayad Mansoor Sakat, a U.S. civilian interpreter from Macomb, Michigan.
Three American soldiers were also wounded.
The Syrian government is currently led by rebels who toppled Bashar al-Assad last year after a 13-year civil war.
New president Ahmed al Sharaa was designated a ‘terrorist’ as recently as last month, according to the Daily Mail.
But ahead of talks with President Trump at the White House in November, the U.S. Department of the Treasury deleted him from its terrorist list as Sharaa pledged to defeat IS in the meeting.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
