Trump said he would take out the families of ISIS fighters.Did an airstrike in Syria do just that? [View all]

[Solly Mack]

Back when he was still a candidate and not president of the United States, Donald Trump had a suggestion for winning the battle against the Islamic State: “Take out their families.”

“The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox News' “Fox and Friends” in December 2015. “They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families.”


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an organization based in Britain that tracks the Syrian war, said that two rounds of coalition airstrikes had hit the town of al-Mayadin in Deir al-Zour province Thursday and Friday. According to their sources, the organization said, one of the strikes had hit a building housing the families of Islamic State fighters.

In total, at least 106 people died in the strikes, the Observatory said, including 42 children of Islamic State fighters. The article announcing the deaths dubbed it “the largest massacre against the [the Islamic State's] families in Syria.”