U.S. Central Command forces conducted precision air strikes today targeting ISIS camps and operatives in Syria, the Defense Department has announced.
“Battle damage assessments are ongoing [and there are] no indications of civilian casualties,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters during a morning briefing.
Ryder added that those initial assessments indicate approximately one dozen ISIS fighters were killed in the strikes.
When questioned as to whether there is any concern within the Pentagon that the Dec. 8 downfall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria could ostensibly lead to ISIS making attempts to free its detained fighters from prison camps in the region, Ryder said that DOD is working with the Syrian Democratic Forces to ensure the situation doesn’t deteriorate.
“[The prison camp situation] presents a significant security concern in the sense that, were ISIS able to affect some type of breakout of any detention facility, that would be a significant setback and something that would be very concerning,” Ryder said.
“[That’s] why we continue to work very closely with the SDF to ensure that those detainees can continue to be held, [and we’re also] working with the international community to attempt to repatriate many of those detainees; that is something that we’ll continue to communicate very closely with the SDF to ensure,” he added.
When questioned in regard to the United States’ military presence in the vicinity of the ISIS detention facilities, Ryder said the U.S. provides an “outer layer” of security in that region, and that the primary focus remains on “supporting the defeat ISIS mission more proactively in terms of disrupting and degrading any potential external operations.”
In other Centcom developments, Ryder announced that the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group entered its area of responsibility on Saturday.
The group, which was deployed to ensure stability and security in the region, “consists of the flagship USS Harry S. Truman; Carrier Air Wing 1, with nine embarked aviation squadrons; Destroyer Squadron 28; the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg; and two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers: USS Stout and USS Jason Dunham,” Ryder explained.
The Harry S. Truman CSG arrived in the region following recent operations in the Mediterranean Sea. Its deployment to the Centcom AOR follows recent deployments to the same region by the USS Abraham Lincoln CSG and the USS Theodore Roosevelt CSG before it.