A lone gunman linked to the “Islamic State” killed two US service members and a civilian interpreter in central Syria, the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Saturday.
What do we know so far?
In a post on Twitter, CENTCOM said three other service members were also injured in the ambush. “The gunman was attacked and killed,” Centcom said.
A component of the U.S. Department of Defense, CENTCOM is in charge of defending and promoting U.S. interests in the Middle East and Central and South Asia.
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said troops in Palmyra were conducting a “major leadership engagement” in support of anti-IS and counterterrorism operations in the area.
“The names of the soldiers, as well as identifying information about their units, are being withheld until 24 hours after notification of next of kin,” Parnell said. He said that investigation is going on.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, also known as Secretary of War, called the attackers on Ax “savages”.
Hegseth said, “Let it be known that if you target Americans – anywhere in the world – you will spend the rest of your letter living a worried life, knowing that the United States will hunt you down, find you, and brutally kill you.”
Tom Barak, the US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, said he “strongly condemns the cowardly terrorist attack targeting a joint US-Syrian government patrol in central Syria.”
Trump promised ‘very serious retaliation’
“We mourn the deaths of three great American patriots in Syria,” US President Donald Trump said in a post on his Truth social platform.
Trump said the area where the attack occurred was “very dangerous” and said Syrian President Ahmed Shaara was “extremely angered and disturbed by this attack.”
“There will be very serious retaliation,” Trump said.
Syrian government says IS attacker was a member of security forces
The Syrian Interior Ministry said allied troops operating in the desert areas of central Syria had been given “pre-warning from the Internal Security Command”.
“International coalition forces did not heed Syrian warnings of possible IS infiltration,” Syrian Interior Ministry spokesman Anwar al-Baba said on Syrian state television.
The Interior Ministry also said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security forces and held “extremist ideologies”.
First fatal IS incident involving US forces in Syria after Assad
It is the first fatal incident of firing against US forces in Syria since rebels ousted President Bashar Assad last year.
Assad, who maintains close ties with Russia and Iran, fought a rebel rebellion in 2011, sparking a civil war that lasted more than a decade.
As the war raged, IS captured Syria’s main city of Raqqa in 2014 and also captured Mosul, the main metropolis of neighboring Iraq, in the same year.
IS later lost control of almost all its territory in 2019 following a series of airstrikes by the US, France, Jordan and several other countries. The US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces were crucial in driving IS out of Syria.
Since Assad’s ouster, the new Syrian administration under Shaara has sought closer ties with the US, particularly in the field of counter-terrorism, with Syria joining the US-led global coalition to defeat ISIS in November.
In November, Reuters and other outlets also reported that Syria had foiled two IS plots to assassinate Shara.
Edited by: Carl Sexton