The U.S. conducted a series of airstrikes against Islamic State camps in Syria on Oct. 28, as the Pentagon continues its efforts to thwart the militant group from making a comeback.
The latest wave of airstrikes, which targeted multiple senior Islamic State leaders, was announced in a Oct. 30 statement by the U.S. Central Command.
The command said that several camps were targeted in the “Syria desert,” an apparent reference to the Badiya desert in central and southern Syria, and that as many as 35 members of the group were killed. There were no indications of civilian casualties, CENTCOM added.
“The airstrikes will disrupt the ability of ISIS to plan, organize, and conduct attacks against civilians, as well as U.S., allies, and partners throughout the region and beyond,” the command said in its Oct. 30 statement. “CENTCOM, alongside allies and partners in the region, will continue to aggressively degrade ISIS operational capabilities to ensure its enduring defeat.”
The U.S. conducted similar airstrikes on Oct. 11 and Sept. 26 in Syria and has also conducted multiple raids with Iraqi forces in recent weeks.
The Islamic State group’s self-declared caliphate was defeated in 2019 by the U.S. and its regional allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces. The U.S. military has been working with the SDF and Iraqi forces ever since to try to preclude the group from regaining strength in Syria and in Iraq.
The group’s operations in Syria remain a major concern, especially since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies have been more focused on suppressing opponents of the Syrian regime than battling the militant group in the Badiya desert, U.S. officials say.
“There’s a reason that we’re not talking about moving capability out of Syria,” a senior defense official said earlier this month. “It’s really ISIS in Syria that is the kind of the core area where ISIS still has combat power, and a lot of the leadership continues to persist. … What you’ve seen out of this administration is a lot of continuity on keeping capability in Syria even after [Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023], because we do see the ISIS threat is being something that warrants that.”
The U.S.-led coalition that has been helping Iraqi forces fight ISIS is being phased out by September 2025. Iraq’s prime minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani is under political pressure domestically to wind down the presence of American and other Western forces.
But the U.S. hopes to transition to a “bilateral security partnership” after that point, which Pentagon officials have yet to define in detail. The agreement with Iraq will also enable the U.S. to sustain its presence in neighboring Syria by providing logistical support from northern Iraq until at least September 2026.
The U.S. currently has some 2,500 troops in Iraq and around 900 in Syria. U.S. officials have not provided details on how the end of Operation Inherent Resolve, as the coalition’s counter-ISIS mission is dubbed, will affect American troop levels. But they have acknowledged the U.S. will likely have fewer troops in Iraq.