On Monday, US Navy fighter jets flew from an aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and dropped bombs on 16 new ISIS targets in the two Middle Eastern countries, Reuters reported.
Being conducted for the fourth day, the air raids opened a new front in the US campaign, the military official claimed.
""We're getting the job done," Rear Admiral Bret Batchelder, commander of the USS Harry S. Truman strike group, told reporters on the vessel as the strikes were being conducted."
An F18 Hornet locked into the steam catapult shortly before being launched off the USS Harry Truman carrier.
Carrier-based F/A-18 fighter jets had dropped 10 to 20 naval munitions on targets in Iraq and Syria since Friday, when the Truman left the Persian Gulf for the Mediterranean to restart bombing the militant targets in both countries.
Navy officials refused to give further details about the kind of targets that were hit and destroyed, but noted that they were somewhat the same as in previous strikes from the Persian Gulf, which focused on Daesh’s financial base.
The group’s oil and gas revenues have plunged to $250 million, Batchelder noted.
He went on to say that moving the Truman to the Mediterranean meant to show that the US Navy is prepared to respond to threats and strike targets from anywhere in the world.
He also said that the ship's 72 fighter jets and other aircraft can hit targets in Libya if needed.
In Libya, the ISIS terrorists are making great progress, but that is not the reason why the ship was redeployed to the Mediterranean, he added.
Batchelder also said that the Truman would take part in several military exercises with US allies in the Mediterranean before it returns to her home port of Norfolk, Virginia in mid-July.
Those drills would include an air military exercise in which the French military would participate, he said, adding a simpler exercise would include Morocco too.
Since 2014, the United States and some of its allies have been carrying out airstrikes against alleged ISIS targets inside Iraq and Syria.
But analysts say the airstrikes have not killed many ISIS terrorists but damaged the infrastructure of the two Arab countries.
According to reports, many of the ISIS terrorists were initially trained by the CIA to target the Syrian people and government.
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