US, Arab allies launch first strikes on IS fighters in Syria

A Tomahawk cruise missile is launched in the Arabian Gulf against ISIS bases in Syria on Tuesday.

Reuters/Washington/Beirut

The US and its Arab allies bombed Syria for the first time on Tuesday, killing scores of Islamic State fighters and members of a separate Al Qaeda-linked group, opening a new front against militants by joining Syria's three-year-old civil war.

In a remarkable sign of shifting Middle East alliances, the attacks took place with no objection - and even signs of tacit approval - from President Bashar al-Assad's Syrian government, which said Washington had notified it in advance.

US Central Command said Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates participated in or supported the strikes against Islamic State targets. All are countries deeply hostile to Assad but now fearful of the fighters that have emerged out of the anti-Assad rebellion they backed.

Warplanes and ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles struck "fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance centre, supply trucks and armed vehicles," CentCom said.

Washington also said US forces had acted alone to launch eight strikes in another area of Syria against the "Khorasan Group", an Al-Qaeda unit US officials have described in recent days as posing a threat similar to that from Islamic State.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, said at least 70 Islamic State fighters were killed in strikes that hit at least 50 targets in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor and Hasakah provinces in Syria's east.

It said at least 50 fighters and eight civilians were killed in strikes targeting al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, in northern Aleppo and Idlib provinces, apparently referring to the strikes the Americans said targeted Khorasan. The Observatory said most of the Nusra Front fighters killed were not Syrians.

The air attacks fulfil President Barack Obama's pledge to strike in Syria against Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim group that has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq, slaughtering prisoners and ordering Shias and non-Muslims to convert or die.

It remains to be seen how effective air strikes can be against Islamic State in Syria, where Washington does not have a strong ally to fight the group on the ground.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Washington and its Arab allies would wage a persistent air campaign in Syria, with the pace of future strikes to depend on finding available targets.

In a sign of how Islamic State's rise has blurred lines in Middle East conflicts, the Syrian government said Washington had informed it hours before the strikes in a letter from Secretary of State John Kerry sent through his Iraqi counterpart.

A Syrian foreign ministry statement refrained from criticising the US-led action. It said Damascus would continue to attack Islamic State and was ready to cooperate with any international effort to fight terrorism.

Only a year ago Washington was on the verge of bombing the Syrian government to punish it for using chemical weapons, before Obama cancelled those strikes at the last minute.

Syrian state TV interviewed an analyst who said the air strikes did not amount to an act of aggression because the government had been notified.

"This does not mean we are part of the joint operations room, and we are not part of the alliance. But there is a common enemy," said the analyst, Ali al-Ahmad.

Residents reached by telephone in Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto capital in eastern Syria, said people were fleeing for the countryside after the bombs started falling overnight.

Islamic State vowed revenge against the US.

"These attacks will be answered," an Islamic State fighter told Reuters by Skype from Syria, blaming Saudi Arabia's ruling family for allowing the strikes to take place.

The Sunni fighters, who have proclaimed a caliphate ruling over all Muslims, shook the Middle East by sweeping through northern Iraq in June. They alarmed the West in recent weeks by killing two US journalists and a British aid worker, raising fears that they could attack Western countries.

The strikes took place hours before Obama goes to the UN General Assembly in New York where he will try to rally more nations behind his drive to destroy Islamic State. The White House said he would make a statement before setting off.