US continues to target the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
By Bill Roggio | January 7, 2025 | @billroggio
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.
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/01/us-continues-to-target-the-islamic-states-network-in-iraq-and-syria.php
