This is John Batchel, a conversation with my colleague Patrick Tucker, the technology editor, Defense 1,

about the scale and intention of the U.S. airstrike launched by CENTCOM against ISIS elements in these last hours,

following the collapse of the Assad regime and the investiture of Damascus, the capital, with so-called rebels.

What did the U.S. hit using B-52s, F-15s, A-10, and rockets?

What did they hit?

And why?

And what does this mean about Damascus?

Here's Patrick Tucker to explain.

A strike on ISIS in 2024 at the end of the Biden administration,

while Mr. Trump indicates the president-elect, he doesn't want to get involved in Syria.

More to come tonight. Well, we know that this target was appropriate because of the size of the ISIS group that had converged there.

And we don't know too much more about it.

They're, of course, a very mobile organization and were not necessarily part of the rebel group that had descended on Damascus, led by Hayat Tahir al-Shahm.

But there are a few groups that are very active right now,

including some that the United States had previously supported.

So it's hard to say exactly what ISIS looks like.

We do know where, at the very least, senior White House officials have said

that they are nearly the organization that they were. They don't get along fantastically with Hayatara al-Sham, and that group, though it is on

an extremist list as designated, they've in many ways separated ties with ISIS, which they had

in a very early point, but now that seems to be

different. So ISIS remains active, but it's not nearly what it was.