WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump touted his anti-war bona fides on the 2024 campaign trail, pledging to his war-weary supporters to end US involvement in “forever wars” and quickly wind down global conflicts.
Instead, the president has gone on to carry out hundreds of airstrikes that have struck targets across five nations while so far failing to bring about his avowed end to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
A review from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) non-profit found that Trump has launched nearly as many airstrikes during the first six months of his presidency as his predecessor, Joe Biden, carried out during his entire four-year term.
Among the nations that have been hit are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Yemen. The Pentagon only acknowledged strikes in Iran and Yemen in response to a question from Anadolu.
“In just five months, Trump has overseen nearly as many US airstrikes (529) as were recorded across the entire four years of the previous administration (555),” ACLED President Clionadh Raleigh said in a statement.
“The US military is moving faster, hitting harder, and doing so with fewer constraints. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and now Iran are all familiar terrain, but this isn’t about geography -- it’s about frequency,” she added.
Indeed, Trump has sought to portray his military posture as “peace through strength,” a reference to a long-standing motto associated with military deterrence.
“Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end -- and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into,” Trump said in his inaugural address.
“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be: a peacemaker and a unifier,” he added.
Yemen
The overwhelming majority of strikes carried out under the Trump administration have targeted Yemen’s Houthi rebels as they sought to restrict commercial shipping in the Red Sea in a bid to pressure Israel into halting its war on Gaza.
ACLED counted 481 US airstrikes in Yemen during the five-month span between February and June of this year. The bulk of the attacks -- 280 -- took place in April as Trump sought to pressure the Houthis into halting their operations in and around the Red Sea.
A ceasefire was declared in May when 49 US strikes were counted, though it is unclear from the ACLED data whether all of the strikes occurred before the May 6 accord was finalized. Just one strike was tallied in June.
Airwars, the London-based airstrike tracker, found that Trump’s campaign nearly doubled the civilian casualty toll in Yemen since US strikes began 2002. It tallied at least 224 civilian deaths during Trump’s Operation Rough Rider, which began in the middle of March before the May ceasefire was brokered.
At least 258 civilians were killed during the preceding 23 years of US military action.
“The scale of the campaign resulted in an unprecedented level of civilian casualties per incident. During Operation Rough Rider, Airwars documented more incidents with higher numbers of casualties per strike than in any other U.S. campaign,” the monitor said.
The Pentagon said it carried out over 1,000 strikes in Yemen since Trump took office, though it is unclear how they drew up the tally, including whether multiple munitions fired on the same target at the same time were counted individually.
Iran
Trump authorized US strikes that targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities in June amid concerns that the military action could lead to a wider regional conflagration. He did so despite objections from prominent members of his MAGA base, including media personality Tucker Carlson, who described the president as “complicit” in Israel’s war on Tehran.
The US struck the Fordo and Natanz facilities with 14 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs dropped from B-2 stealth bombers, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said in June shortly after Operation Midnight Hammer was conducted. Over two dozen submarine-launched cruise missiles targeted the Isfahan site, he added.
The strikes prompted Iran to retaliate by launching a series of ballistic missiles at Al-Udeid US air base in Qatar, though Trump has sought to downplay their severity. The vast majority were intercepted, but the Pentagon acknowledged last week that a radar dome was struck at the facility, which serves as the forward headquarters for US Central Command.
No casualties were reported.
US strikes target ISIS/Daesh in Syria, Iraq
The US has continued its strikes against the ISIS (Daesh) terror group since Trump assumed office, carrying out attacks against the organization across its former home base in Iraq and Syria.
In Syria, ACLED tallied three strikes in February and one strike in Iraq in both March and April. The tally for Afghanistan was not immediately clear, though the group did include the country in its press release as a location of military strikes since Trump took office.
Trump continues air operations against al-Shabab in Somalia
US attacks against the al-Shabab terror group in Somalia have remained relatively steady during the second Trump administration with an average of nearly nine taking place every month through June. A total of 44 strikes were recorded by ACLED.
