DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says attacks are ‘a declaration of vengeance’, and ‘lots’ of fighters have been killed.The United States military is “striking very seriously against ISIS [ISIL] strongholds in Syria”, President Donald Trump said, a week after two US soldiers and an interpreter were killed in Syria’s Palmyra city.“Because of ISIS’s vicious killing of brave American Patriots in Syria… I am hereby announcing that the United States is inflicting very serious retaliation, just as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listTrump said that Syria’s government, which was formed after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in late 2024, was “fully in support” of the US military operation.Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also repeated its commitment to combating ISIL and said it “invites the United States and member states of the international coalition to support these efforts”.“The Syrian Arab Republic reiterates its steadfast commitment to fighting ISIS and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory, and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat,” the Ministry said in the statement shared on X early on Saturday.US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said earlier that US forces had targeted “ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites”, adding that the attack was named Operation Hawkeye Strike.“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” Hegseth said in a post on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And w …
