US President Barack Obama said yesterday that, “air strikes the United States and its Arab allies unleashed against the ‘self styled’ Islamic State group in Syria send a clear message that the world is united in confronting the jihadists”.
Dozens of IS and Al-Qaeda militants were reported killed in the raids, which Washington said had partly targeted extremists plotting an “imminent attack” against the West.
Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined in the operation that saw a divulge of bombs and missiles fired from sea and air.
Tuesday´s raids came after US and French air strikes in neighbouring Iraq, opening a new front in the war against the IS organisation which has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq and declared an Islamic “caliphate”.
Describing the strikes as “very successful,” the Pentagon said they hit IS positions, training compounds, command centres and armed vehicles in the IS stronghold of Raqa and near the Iraqi border.
