The strikes come one week after three Americans died at the hands of an ISIS gunman in Syria. U.S. officials say the attacks involved fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery.
President Donald Trump addressed the strikes in North Carolina during an event in Rocky Mount on Friday night.
"It was very successful. It was precision. We hit every site flawlessly," said Trump. "We hit them hard. I ordered a massive strike on the terrorists that killed three great patriots last week. Two soldiers, one interpreter, all great people."
The retaliatory strikes came one week after an ISIS gunman killed three Americans, including two Iowa National Guardsmen and a civilian interpreter.
Navin Bapat is the political science department chair at UNC-Chapel Hill. He said he sees the strikes more as a retaliatory action, and not as a military buildup in the Middle East.
"Any potential threat that ISIS may reconstitute itself, may expand again, may attempt to move into Iraq or any other area, I think that would be looked at as a potential threat by the United States," said Bapat.
He said the U.S. has had a presence in Syria since the end of the Obama Administration as part of a decades-long mission against ISIS -- a mission that has been winding down in recent years.
"Operation Inherent Resolve, which has been ongoing since June 2014, which was a mission aimed at fighting ISIS in Iraq and in Syria," he said.
Bapat said the strikes also support the administration's approach of being tough on crime and terror on the global stage and at home.
"The Trump Administration has focused quite a bit on terrorism as being something that's a concern to the United States, and wants to demonstrate that the United States has a strong response to terrorism," he said.
Bapat said the administration has been more focused on what's happening in the Western Hemisphere, specifically in Venezuela, and has been actively moving more U.S. assets there than to the Middle East.