Strikes Continue in Effort to Defeat ISIS in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Sept. 4, 2017 — U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 31 strikes consisting of 35 engagements, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

In Syria, coalition military forces conducted 25 strikes consisting of 27 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Abu Kamal, a strike destroyed 10 ISIS oil stills.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, three strikes destroyed 30 ISIS oil barrels, three oil stills, a wellhead and a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.

-- Near Raqqa, 21 strikes engaged nine ISIS tactical units and destroyed 13 fighting positions, two pieces of ISIS communications infrastructure, two vehicles, a vehicle-borne IED, a command-and-control node and a logistics node.

Officials also provided details today on 10 earlier strikes near Raqqa consisting of 10 engagements for which the information was not available in time for yesterday's report:

-- On Sept. 1, five strikes engaged five ISIS tactical units.

-- On Sept. 2, five strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units and suppressed two fighting positions.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted six strikes consisting of eight engagements against ISIS targets.

-- Near Huwayjah, three strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and a destroyed a command-and-control node, an ISIS unmanned-aircraft-system site, an ammunition cache, a vehicle-borne IED facility and an ISIS-held building.

-- Near Baghdad, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit.

-- Near Qaim, two strikes destroyed an ISIS headquarters, a crane and a front-end loader.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said.

The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.

Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect.

For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.

The task force does not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.