Two US troops and a civilian interpreter were killed in central Syria on Saturday after an alleged member of the Islamic State (IS) group opened fire on a joint US-Syrian patrol, officials said.
“We mourn the loss of three Great American Patriots in Syria,” US President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform, vowing “very serious retaliation.”
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the attack took place in Palmyra, home to UNESCO-listed ancient ruins and once controlled by the IS — also known as ISIS — during the height of its territorial expansion in Syria.
Photo: Reuters
The deadly attack had been “an ambush by a lone ISIS gunman,” who was “engaged and killed,” US Central Command said on X.
Trump called it “an ISIS attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them.”
Three other wounded US troops were “doing well,” he said.
The soldiers “were conducting a key leader engagement” in support of counterterrorism operations when the attack occurred, Parnell said, while US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said the ambush targeted “a joint US-Syrian government patrol.”
The incident is the first of its kind reported since rebel forces overthrew longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December last year, and rekindled the country’s ties with the US.
Trump said Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who visited the White House last month, was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.”
Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Asaad al-Shaibani said in a post on X that Damascus “strongly condemns the terrorist attack that targeted a joint Syria-US counterterrorism patrol near Palmyra.”
“We extend our condolences to the families of the victims, as well as to the American government and people, and wish the wounded a speedy recovery,” he said.
A Syrian military official who requested anonymity said the shots were fired “during a meeting between Syrian and American officers” at a Syrian base in Palmyra.
A witness, who asked to remain anonymous, said he heard the shots coming from inside the base.
However, a Pentagon official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the attack “took place in an area where the Syrian president does not have control.”
In an interview on state television, Syrian Ministry of the Interior spokesman Anwar al-Baba said there had been “prior warnings from the internal security command to allied forces in the desert region” of a potential IS “infiltration.”
“The international coalition forces did not take the Syrian warnings of a possible IS infiltration into consideration,” he said.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria, the meeting came as part of an “American strategy to strengthen its presence and foothold in the Syrian desert.”
The official SANA news agency reported that helicopters evacuated the wounded to the al-Tanf base in southern Syria, where US troops are deployed as part of the Washington-led global coalition against the IS group.
Last month, during al-Sharaa’s historic visit to Washington, Damascus formally joined the coalition.
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
RSS