3 Americans killed in ISIS attack in Syria, Trump says, vowing to retaliate

By ABDI LATIF DAHIR, CHRISTINA GOLDBAUM, JOHN ISMAY and ERIC SCHMITT

President Donald Trump vowed on Saturday to retaliate against the Islamic State militant group after an attack in central Syria killed two U.S. Army soldiers and a civilian U.S. interpreter, the first American casualties in the country since the fall of dictator Bashar Assad last year.

“This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “There will be very serious retaliation.”

The soldiers were supporting counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State group in Palmyra, a city in central Syria, when they came under fire from a lone gunman, according to U.S. officials. Syrian security forces subsequently killed the gunman, U.S. and Syrian officials said.

Three U.S. military personnel and two members of Syrian security forces were also wounded in the attack, according to U.S. officials and Syrian state media. In the aftermath, U.S. helicopters were deployed to evacuate the wounded to the al-Tanf U.S. base in southeastern Syria, Syrian state media said.

Although the United States’ deployment in the Middle East is a fraction of what it once was, the assault was a stark reminder of the danger in the region and the quandary of whether to keep U.S. forces there.

It also highlighted the challenges for the nascent Syrian government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, as it steers a deeply-fractured country emerging from nearly 14 years of civil war.

Since his rebel coalition toppled the Assad government, al-Sharaa has had to contend with threats from the Islamic State and various other armed groups, while simultaneously building a new national military.

The attack also comes months after the United States began to draw down its military presence in Syria, from about 2,000 troops at the start of the year to about 1,000 today, according to a Pentagon official.

It remains unclear whether the lethal attack on U.S. soldiers Saturday will affect that strategy.

The decision to draw down forces reflected the shifting security environment in Syria after Assad’s government collapsed. While Islamic State cells have continued to carry out attacks in Syria, Assad’s departure diminished the threats posed by the Iranian-backed militias and Russian troops who had supported him.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forcefully condemned the attack, writing in a post on social platform X, “if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you and ruthlessly kill you.”

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack though initial assessments suggest that it was likely carried out by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, according to a Pentagon official.

Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said: “This is a glaring reminder that the radical Islamic threat against the U.S. and our service members abroad is still very real, and we must continue to treat ISIS, and any other radical terror group, like the deadly threat they are.”

The attack Saturday unfolded outside a building in Palmyra where Syrian Interior Ministry officials from the capital, Damascus, were meeting with their counterparts in the city, according to a U.S. official.

The U.S. soldiers and their interpreter were providing security outside when a lone gunman opened fire on them from a nearby building with what appeared to be a machine gun, the official said. Syrian security forces then opened fire and killed the gunman, according to the U.S. official and Syrian officials.

The U.S. soldiers killed were part of an Iowa National Guard contingent assigned to the Syria mission, Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa said.

A spokesperson for the Syrian Interior Ministry, Noureddine al-Baba, said in a statement that the Syrian government had warned U.S. counterparts about the possibility of attacks by the Islamic State on their forces.

“The international coalition forces did not take the Syrian warnings about the possibility of an ISIS breach into account,” al-Baba said.

Since 2014, U.S. forces have been deployed in Syria across various U.S. bases. For years, their main objectives have included combating the Islamic State, guarding strategic areas such as oil fields and curbing Iranian influence.

U.S. forces have also partnered with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia that controls much of the nation’s northeast, to provide training and equipment, and maintain pressure on the Islamic State. The group seized control of Palmyra in 2015, destroying invaluable archaeological sites and carrying out brutal attacks on civilians and military personnel.

After suffering stinging defeats in 2017, the Islamic State’s capabilities in Syria were greatly diminished. Remnants of the group remained at large in the remote desert of eastern Syria.

But the group has continued to carry out small-scale attacks since Assad’s departure, primarily targeting soldiers from al-Sharaa’s government. There are also growing concerns about the possibility of the group breaking thousands of its hardened militants out of detention, which could further destabilize the region.

Last month, after meeting with Trump in the White House, al-Sharaa signed a declaration of political cooperation with the U.S.-led coalition that combats the Islamic State in Syria.

The move reflected both al-Sharaa’s eagerness to establish stronger ties with the United States and the volatility his country continues to face, as it grapples with sectarian violence, deep humanitarian crises and the formidable challenge of rebuilding its military and security forces.

The attack Saturday “comes at a critical juncture in the formation of U.S.-Syria bilateral security ties which behind the scenes have been coming on leaps and bounds in the last six months,” said Charles Lister, the director of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute.

On Saturday evening, the situation in Palmyra remained fraught. Throughout the afternoon, the sounds of gunfire and planes were heard across the city and many roads remained closed, residents said.

“The situation in Palmyra is tense,” Mohammed Al-Fadhil, a human rights activist in Palmyra, said in a phone interview. “Civilians are living in fear.”