Airstrikes in hot spots mark transition
WASHINGTON — As the clock wound down on Barack Obama’s presidency, a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber carried out a punishing airstrike against a training camp of al-Qaida in Syria, the Pentagon said Friday.
The attack, which took place west of Aleppo, killed more than 100 fighters, according to the Pentagon. Armed drones were also involved in the operation, which took place Thursday evening local time.
Just days later, the first drone strikes launched during the new administration of President Donald Trump killed many of the dozens of people slain in renewed fighting in the Yemen conflict over the weekend, according to Yemeni news reports.
The bombing reported Friday was the second major strike carried out by U.S. warplanes in Mr. Obama’s waning hours in the White House. On Thursday, the Pentagon reported that B-2 stealth bombers had flown their first combat mission in nearly six years to attack two training camps in Libya that were being used by the Islamic State group.
The flurry of airstrikes against militant groups in North Africa and the Middle East illustrates the challenges that Mr. Trump faces in carrying out the vow in his inaugural address to combat “radical Islamic terrorism,” which he promised to “eradicate completely from the face of the earth.” The extremists have proved to be resilient and are operating in far-flung countries that are racked by internal fighting and where there is little or no U.S. military presence.
The B-52 strike on Thursday, the Pentagon said, was directed at the Shaykh Sulayman Training Camp in Idlib. Pentagon officials said it had been in operation for several years but had only recently become a base for core al-Qaida extremists, who have largely come from outside Syria to fight and plot attacks. All told, 14 bombs and missiles were used in that attack.
The Pentagon had announced other attacks against al-Qaida operatives in recent days, asserting that more than 150 terrorists had been killed since Jan. 1.
On Thursday, U.S. intelligence officials also said that as many as 117 civilians had been killed in drone and other counterterror attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere during Mr. Obama’s presidency. It was the second public assessment issued in response to mounting pressure for more information about lethal U.S. operations overseas.
On Sunday, Yemeni reports said that two drone strikes in the central Yemeni province of Bayda on Saturday killed 10 militants with al-- Qaida, three of them hit while riding on a motorcycle and the other seven killed in a vehicle in a separate drone attack in the same area. (The greatest loss of life in Yemen over the weekend — which claimed the lives of at least 66 fighters — however, was from an offensive begun two weeks ago on the Red Sea coast by the Saudi-led coalition fighting on behalf of the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.)
The United States did not take responsibility for the strikes, as is its standard policy.
No other forces are known to be conducting drone strikes in the area.