The multiple air strikes launched by the US and its Arab allies against Islamist militants in Syria were the “beginnings of a sustained campaign” that could last for years, the Pentagon said yesterday.
Lieutenant General William Mayville, the director of operations for the Pentagon, said the overnight strikes had hit vehicles, training camps and command and control centres controlled by fighters from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis.
The attacks, conducted with several Arab states, were, he said, the start of a “sustainable persistent campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy” Isis, which has over the past year seized control of a swath of Syria and Iraq.