The United States military struck more than 70 Islamic State targets across central Syria on Friday, employing over 100 precision munitions in one of the largest counter-ISIS operations since the group's territorial collapse in 2019. U.S. Central Command reported that F-15 and A-10 strike aircraft, AH-64 Apache helicopters, and HIMARS rocket artillery hit known ISIS infrastructure and weapons sites in rural Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and the Jabal al-Amour area near Palmyra. Jordanian fighter jets participated in what Amman's state news agency Petra described as action to prevent extremists from threatening regional security.
The operation, code-named Hawkeye Strike and launched at 16:00 ET on December 19, was designed as swift retaliation for a December 13 attack in Palmyra that killed two U.S. Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter—the first American combat deaths in Syria since 2019. Yet the mechanics of that ambush reveal a challenge no number of precision strikes can directly solve: the integrity of Syria's transitional security forces, the very partner institutions on which Washington's counter-ISIS strategy increasingly depends.
A message strike with limited tactical claims
CENTCOM characterized Friday's operation as targeting ISIS command nodes, weapons storage, and operational hubs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth framed the action as a "declaration of vengeance," vowing that the U.S. would continue to pursue those who target Americans and their partners. President Donald Trump told reporters the U.S. was "striking very strongly" and claimed Syria's government was "fully in support." Admiral Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, said American forces would "relentlessly pursue terrorists who seek to harm Americans and our partners."
Casualty figures remain sparse. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported at least five ISIS members killed, including a cell leader linked to drone operations in Deir ez-Zor. Islamic State has not issued any statement. The scale of destruction to ISIS infrastructure is independently unverifiable, and past large-footprint strikes have yielded modest operational disruption against a dispersed insurgency. Since the Palmyra attack, U.S. and coalition forces conducted ten operations in Syria and Iraq, detaining or killing 23 ISIS operatives according to CENTCOM; since July, approximately 80 operations have been mounted. In November alone, 15 weapons caches were destroyed in southern Syria.
The tempo signals sustained pressure. But tempo is not the same as strategic leverage.
Members are reading: How the insider-threat dimension of the Palmyra attack exposes a structural vulnerability in the U.S.-Syria partnership that retaliation strikes cannot solve.
Jordan steps in, signaling regional stakes
Jordan's participation in Friday's operation underscores Amman's stake in containing ISIS spillover and maintaining buffer-zone security along its northern frontier. Royal Jordanian Air Force involvement also reflects deepening trilateral coordination among Washington, Amman, and Damascus—a configuration unthinkable during Assad's tenure but now central to regional counter-terrorism architecture. The Palmyra ambush itself tested this new partnership dynamic, occurring as U.S. forces operated in proximity to Syrian security personnel.
Jordan's calculus is straightforward: ISIS resurgence in Syria's desert interior threatens Jordanian border security and risks drawing fighters back across a frontier Amman has worked for years to harden. Publicly joining U.S. retaliation sends a deterrent message and binds Washington more closely to Jordanian security priorities.
What comes next
The immediate question is whether CENTCOM and Syrian authorities will converge on a public accounting of the Palmyra attacker's identity and affiliation. Transparency on that front will signal the maturity—or fragility—of the U.S.-Syria security partnership. Operational follow-through matters as well: whether targeting shifts from infrastructure to counter-intelligence-driven raids aimed at rolling up infiltrated cells, and whether vetting protocols for Syrian partner forces are tightened.
ISIS has not yet issued propaganda exploiting the Palmyra attack or Friday's strikes, but historical patterns suggest such messaging is likely. The group's remaining leadership will frame any coalition casualties as proof of resilience and any retaliatory strikes as proof of Western desperation. The strategic test for Washington is whether it can move beyond retaliation to resilience—building partner capacity that can withstand infiltration and sustain pressure on a dispersed, adaptive adversary. Friday's operation imposed costs. The harder work lies in ensuring the institutions meant to prevent the next Palmyra are fit for purpose.
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