A joint coalition task force led by the United States announced that airstrikes and coordinated attacks took out “several hundred” Islamic State fighters in Syria.
The operation took place in the middle Euphrates River Valley in Syria between Dec. 16 and Dec. 22 — overlapping with President Trump’s unexpected announcement that the U.S. would withdraw its roughly 2,000 troops from the country.
“These coordinated attacks destroyed ISIS logistics facilities and staging areas; ultimately this severely degraded ISIS capabilities to maneuver and control their attack formations, but also removed several hundred ISIS fighters from the battlefield,” the Tuesday press release by Operation Inherent Resolve reads.
The press release also revealed that the airstrikes took out ISIS “financial centers and capabilities in Susah and As Shafah, which delivered a significant blow to the ability of” the militant group to finance terrorist activities.
“ISIS presents a very real threat to the long-term stability in this region and our mission remains the same, the enduring defeat of ISIS,” U.K. Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, the deputy commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a statement Tuesday.
The press release said “coalition partner forces continue to advance through the last remaining stronghold ISIS has in the region.”
Trump abruptly announced Dec. 19 that ISIS had been defeated and the U.S. would begin a full and rapid withdrawal of its ground troops in the war-torn country.
The decision led in part to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ sudden resignation last week. Mattis had said his last day would be in February, but Trump announced over the weekend that he was being pushed out early and replaced by Patrick Shanahan.
Then, Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIS, submitted his resignation Friday because of the decision to withdraw troops. McGurk had previously said privately that he was going to leave the administration in February, but his resignation is now effective Dec. 31.
Syria has been ravaged by civil war, which began in 2011, and experts as well as Trump’s own advisers told him not to withdraw from the country.
As of April 2018, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees said more than 5.6 million Syrians have fled the country, and another 6 million people are displaced internally.
In addition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said earlier this year that roughly 511,000 people had been killed in the Syrian civil war since it began in 2011. Furthermore, roughly 85 percent of the dead were civilians killed by the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, the Observatory said.
Airstrikes by the U.S. and its allies began against ISIS in Syria in September 2014. The operation was dubbed Operation Inherent Resolve.
The civil war is a fight between ISIS, Kurdish forces, the regime of Bashar Assad, and other opposition groups.
As of November, reports showed Syrian government forces held roughly 63 percent of the country, Kurdish forces held roughly 28 percent of the country, and less than 10 percent is controlled by rebel groups. ISIS controlled less than one percent.
