The US launched a series of strikes against the Islamic State’s (IS) network in Iraq and Syria over the past week. The operations are part of the US military’s continuing effort to degrade the Islamic State and prevent it from filling the security vacuum left by the collapse of the Assad regime. US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the raids, which took place between December 30, 2024, and January 6, 2025, in a press release.
In Iraq, US and “partner forces,” presumably the Iraqi military, battled the Islamic State for eight days in the Hamrin Mountains, a mountain ridge in northern Iraq that extends from Diyala to Salahaddin Province. US and allied forces targeted “known ISIS [Islamic State] locations” in the region. The Islamic State and its predecessor in Iraq, Al Qaeda in Iraq, have used the Hamrin Mountains as a safe haven and established training camps there over the past two decades.
CENTCOM deployed various strike aircraft, including “F-16s, F-15s, and A-10s,” as Islamic State fighters routinely engaged the coalition forces—likely ground troops, though CENTCOM did not specify these details.
“One Coalition member was killed and two were wounded from two different nations,” but no American personnel were killed or wounded during the operation, CENTCOM noted. An undisclosed number of Islamic State fighters were killed during A-10 strikes on a cave where the terrorists holed up.
In Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by CENTCOM forces, captured “an ISIS attack cell leader” during a two-day operation near Deir el Zour, a city on the Euphrates River in the eastern part of the country.
CENTCOM last struck the Islamic State in Deir el Zour Province on December 23, 2024, when it killed two Islamic State fighters and wounded another as they were “moving a truckload of weapons […] in an area formerly controlled by the Syrian regime and Russians.” Four days prior, US assets killed two Islamic State operatives in a “precision airstrike” in Deir el Zour, including Abu Yusif aka Mahmud, who was described as a leader of the group.
CENTCOM has stepped up strikes against the Islamic State to prevent it from reemerging in the wake of the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad’s regime on December 7, 2024. The day after Assad fled the country, CENTCOM “struck over 75 [Islamic State] targets using multiple US Air Force assets, including B-52s, F-15s, and A-10s.” Nine days later, US assets targeted numerous “known ISIS camps and operatives in Syria.” The strikes were intended to “disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS, preventing the terrorist group from conducting external operations and to ensure that ISIS does not seek opportunities to reconstitute in central Syria,” CENTCOM stated.
