The US on Sunday struck dozens of the ISIS targets inside Syria, just hours after rebels seized the capital Damascus and forced President Bashar al-Assad to flee to Russia after 13 years of civil war and six decades of his family’s autocratic rule.
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- US President Joe Biden today said Washington is “clear eyed” that the Islamic State extremist group, often known as ISIS, “will try to take advantage of any vacuum to reestablish” itself in Syria, adding “they will not let that happen”.
- Speaking from the White House, he said his forces conducted strikes against ISIS inside Syria on Sunday with the US military confirming that its warplanes hit Islamic State operatives and camps.
- Strikes were carried out against “over 75 targets using multiple US Air Force assets, including B-52s, F-15s, and A-10s” in central Syria, the US Central Command said in an official statement.
- The US maintains a force of around 900 troops in southeast Syria to fight the Islamic State fighters.
- Biden also said the fall of the Assam regime was a “fundamental act of justice.” “It’s a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria,” he said.
- Ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family have reportedly fled to Moscow and have been granted asylum.
- His government fell 11 days after the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group challenged more than five decades of the Assad family rule with a lightning offensive.
- “A new history, my brothers, is being written in the entire region after this great victory,” top rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani told a huge crowd in Damascus.
- The rebels began their advance on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took place in neighbouring Lebanon between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah members.
- Syria’s civil war, which started in 2011, has killed more than 5,00,000 people and forced half of the population to flee their homes.