U.S. Navy fighter jets flying from an aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean Sea bombed 16 new Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria on Monday (June 6).
Now in their fourth day, the strikes from the Mediterranean have opened a new front in the U.S. air campaign against the militant group.
“We’re getting the job done,” Rear Admiral Bret Batchelder, commander of the USS Harry S. Truman strike group, told reporters on the ship as the strikes were being conducted.
He said carrier-based F/A-18 fighter jets had released 10 to 20 naval munitions on targets in Iraq and Syria since Friday, when the Truman moved to the Mediterranean from the Gulf to resume bombing militant targets in both countries.
Navy officials gave no details about what targets were hit and destroyed, but said they were largely the same as in previous strikes from the Gulf, with a focus on destroying and eroding Islamic State’s financial base.
Batchelder said the fight against Islamic State is starting to bear fruit, with estimates showing the U.S. military and coalition partners in 64 countries have retaken about 45 percent of the land formerly controlled by the militant group.
Islamic State’s oil and gas revenues have fallen to $250 million, he said.
In February, State Department spokesman John Kirby used the same estimate to describe the decline in the group’s oil income since last summer, before the U.S. began targeting its oil fields and supply routes in Syria.
The aircraft carrier’s commanding officer, Captain Ryan B. Scholl said the current mission was “one of the busiest deployments that I have been on in my 28 years of service.”
Scholl said the current mission included “a lot of young sailors that are 19, 20 years old that joined for the first time.”
“We are certainly telling them about all the successes that the air wing is providing in terms of their support for the air campaign that is going on against ISIL,” Scholl said.
“These sailors see that and they know that and they know that they are providing that support.”
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016
