In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem speaks during a news conference, giving the first public comments by a senior Assad official on the threat posed by the Islamic State group, in Damascus, Syria on Monday, August 25, 2014.DAMASCUS, Syria – The Syrian foreign ministry said on Tuesday that the United States informed Damascus’ envoy to the United Nations before launching airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria.
The ministry issued a brief statement, carried by Syrian state media, saying that “the American side informed Syria’s permanent envoy to the U.N. that strikes will be launched against the Daesh terrorist organization in Raqqa.”
The statement used an Arabic name referring to the Islamic State group, which seized large chunks of Syrian and Iraqi territory in a blitz this summer.
The airstrikes hit targets in and around the Syrian city of Raqqa and the province with the same name, activists said, adding that there were casualties among Islamic State militants on the ground. The city of Raqqa is the militant group’s self-declared capital in Syria.
The ministry statement was Damascus’ first official reaction after the U.S. and five Arab countries launched airstrikes on Islamic State group’s targets in Syria late on Monday, expanding a military campaign into a country whose three-year civil war has given the brutal militant group a safe haven.