Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has been examining the feasibility of additional attacks on Al Qaida strongholds in Syria.

Officials said President Barack Obama authorized air reconnaissance operations over Syria and was examining the prospect of additional attacks on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. They said the operations, drafted by U.S. Central Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could free U.S. captives of ISIL as well as block its supply lines to neighboring Iraq.

“This is an organization that has an apocalyptic end-of-days strategic vision that will eventually have to be defeated,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. “Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no.”

At a briefing on Aug. 21, senior defense and military officials acknowledged that the U.S. military was mulling options against ISIL’s massive presence in Syria. They said the Al Qaida splinter group was operating tens of thousands of fighters and controlled much of northern Syria.

“Were looking at all options,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said.

On Aug. 20, the White House announced a failed mission to free an American hostage held by ISIL in northern Syria. Officials said the mission, the first direct U.S. military intervention in Syria in nearly a decade, included air and ground operations that killed an undetermined number of ISIL fighters.

“The president has not made any decision to conduct military action in Syria,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Aug. 25.

ISIL has executed at least one American and was threatening another, both identified as journalists who covered the Sunni revolt in Syria.

Officials said the mission to find the Americans, believed to have taken place in the Raqqa province, would be sustained.

“If you come after Americans, we’re going to come after you, wherever you are,” Deputy National Security Advisor Benjamin Rhodes said. “We’re actively considering what’s going to be necessary to deal with that threat and we’re not going to be restricted by borders.”

The U.S. Air Force has been operating manned and unmanned aircraft in operations against ISIL in northern Iraq. So far, the air force has reported about 100 air strikes, most of which targeted U.S. combat platforms stolen by ISIL from Iraq Army bases.

“It requires a variety of instruments, only one small part of which is air strikes,” Dempsey, who for years opposed military intervention, said.

“I’m not predicting those will occur in Syria, at least not by the United States of America.”

  Chuck Hagel, Gen. Martin Dempsey, U.S. begins recon missions over Syria, weighs attacks on ISIL strongholds