U.S. military officials said on Tuesday that the airstrikes in Syria were only the opening salvo in a prolonged military campaign projected to drag on for months.

The first wave of airstrikes opens a new phase in President Obama's anti-Islamic State strategy and comes barely six weeks after similar attacks were launched in neighboring Iraq.

Like Us on Facebook

Army Lt. Gen. William C. Mayville Jr., operations chief for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, warned that the campaign may take years to complete, if not longer, as targets begin to seek refuge in densely populated areas.

The goal of the attack is to ultimately destroy the group, firstly by directly assaulting the group's forces in both countries, cripple its supply lines and sever its financial sources, Mayville said at a Pentagon briefing hours after the airstrikes began.

The air raids hit two sets of enemies: the Islamic State group, known in Arabic as Daesh, which is seeking to establish its own country in the region after proclaiming an Islamic caliphate earlier this year, and the Khorasan group, an al-Qaeda offshoot officials believe poses an imminent threat in the United States and Europe.

Even as the U.S. military and allied Arab forces prepare to expand their air campaign to other Daesh targets in Syria, they will have to contend with a potential escalation of conflict with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

An unnamed state department spokesman said early Tuesday that the Syrian regime was notified of the attack although its permission was not sought.

The U.S. has repeatedly emphasized that its military forces were not targeting Assad or his forces. However, its Sunni Arab allies have long wanted to bring to an end to the devastating civil war brought on by Assad's regime.

Whether the recent military intervention will work in favor of Assad or not is still unknown, The Washington Post reported.

Aside from the airstrikes, the United States and its regional and international partners will also be training moderate Syrian fighters, Iraqi troops, and Kurdish peshmerga fighters to stand against the Islamic State extremists on the ground.

The first wave of airstrikes consisted primarily of bombs dropped from U.S. and Arab fighter jets. The attack commenced on Monday and was confirmed by Pentagon late Tuesday morning.

TagsISIS, ISIL, Daesh, Syrian airstrikes