The United States struck ISIS targets in Somalia for the first time on Thursday, a few days after a terrorist linked with the militant group killed eight people in a New York City attack.
President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. military had been hitting the ISIS terror army ‘much harder’ since it was linked with Tuesday’s deadly attack.
‘Every time we’re attacked from this point forward, and it took place yesterday, we are hitting them ten times harder,’ he pledged.
Now it’s clear what he meant. Trump vowed Friday that with every ISIS-led act of aggression against Americans, ‘we are hitting them ten times harder.’
The president referred to a counter-assault that ‘took place yesterday’ but didn’t offer specifics.
Now U.S. Africa Command says that U.S. forces conducted two separate airstrikes against ISIS in northeastern Somalia. ‘killing several terrorists.’
President Donald Trump reacted to an ISIS claim of responsibility for Tuesday’s New York Terror attack by saying that with every act of aggression ‘we are hitting them ten times harder’
‘They will pay a big price for every attack on us,’ Trump said of the terror army
‘The first strike occurred at approximately midnight local Somalia time with the second separate strike occurring at approximately 11 a.m. local Somalia time.’
The al-Qaeda-linked terror group Al Shabab has seen some of its fighters split off in recent months to join the self-proclaimed ISIS ‘caliphate.’
The Trump administration has carried out more than a dozen drone strikes on Al Shabab targets this year, but Thursday’s military action marks a new focus there.
Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old from Uzbekistan, was a ‘soldier’ of ISIS, according to the terror group’s weekly newspaper
Somali security officials told the Associated Press that at least six missiles struck in Buqa, a remote mountainous village roughly 60 kilometers from of Qandala town in the northern state of Puntland.
‘The airstrike may have targeted top leaders of the group, the official said.
The mayor of Qandala said the strikes sent terrified nomadic villagers and their animals fleeing.
Trump spoke to reporters Friday on the South lawn of the White House as he left for 12 days in Asia.
‘So when we have an animal do an attack like he did the other day on the West Side of Manhattan, we are hitting them ten times harder. They claimed him as a soldier. Good luck. Every time they hit us, we know it’s ISIS, we hit them like you folks won’t believe.’
On the campaign trail, Trump frequently threatened to amp up his activities tenfold in the face of resistance from his political enemies.
Whenever he would threaten to force Mexico to pay for a physical barrier separating it from the United States, past and present Mexican authorities would publicly vow never to spend a peso.
Saipov’s method had all the hallmarks of an ISIS attack, which the group has touted in its monthly magazine. He is pictured under arrest by police they shot him
His response was always the same: ‘The wall just got ten feet higher.’
Earlier in the morning he had tweeted that ‘ISIS just claimed the Degenerate Animal who killed, and so badly wounded, the wonderful people on the West Side, was “their soldier”.’
‘Based on that, the Military has hit ISIS “much harder” over the last two days. They will pay a big price for every attack on us!’
In this week’s issue of ‘Al-Naba,’ a newspaper published by ISIS, the group claimed 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov is ‘one of the soldiers of the Islamic State who attacked a number of crusaders on a street in New York City.’
ISIS didn’t provide evidence for this claim, but Saipov was charged Wednesday in federal court with acting in support of the terror group when he plowed a rentde truck into a popular Manhattan bike trail, killing eight and injuring a dozen more.
According to the criminal complaint filed against him, Saipov told investigators he was inspired by watching ISIS propaganda videos and asked for permission to hang an ISIS flag in his hospital room.
People placed flowers at a memorial at the scene of Tuesday’s terrorist attack along a bike path in lower Manhattan on Thursday
Trump has twice called for Saipov to be executed for his crime, which represented the deadliest act of suspected terrorism to hit New York since the 9/11 airplane hijackings in 2001.
An analysis from the SITE Intelligence Group concluded there’s no evidence to suggest ISIS organized or directed Saipov’s attack.
Instead it appears he was inspired by the militant group’s extremist ideology.
The structure of Saipov’s attack – long-range planning, using a rented vehicle, carrying secondary weapons and leaving propaganda materials behind – mirrors methods promoted in Al-Naba.
‘He appears to have followed almost exactly to a “T” the instructions that ISIS has put out in its social media channels,’ New York police deputy commissioner John Miller said this week.
ISIS seldom issues claims of responsibility for attacks that don’t claim the lives of the perpetrators.
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