Less than a month before the attack, Syria said it had reached a political cooperation agreement with the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.
Syrian authorities have arrested five people suspected of being tied to the deadly shooting of U.S. and Syrian troops in the Syrian town of Palmyra on Saturday, the nation’s Interior Ministry announced on Dec. 14.
Sean Parnell, spokesman for the U.S. Department of War, said in a statement on X that two U.S. Army soldiers and one American civilian interpreter were killed while three others were wounded while conducting “counter-ISIS/counter-terrorism” operations in the region on Saturday.
He said the soldiers’ names and information about their units would be withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notifications and that the attack was still under investigation.
Shortly after Parnell’s social media post, U.S. Central Command stated the victims were ambushed “by a lone ISIS gunman” who was then engaged by U.S.-led forces and killed.
The Syrian Interior Ministry said the attacker, who targeted a convoy of U.S. and Syrian forces, was a Syrian security forces member believed to have ties with the ISIS terrorist group.
Less than a month before the attack, Syria said it had reached a political cooperation agreement with the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, which came alongside Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s visit with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.
“Our units carried out a precise and decisive security operation in the city of Palmyra, following a cowardly terrorist attack carried out yesterday by an individual affiliated with the Islamic State,” the Syrian Interior Ministry said in a statement.
“The operation was conducted in full coordination with the General Intelligence Service and international coalition forces, and resulted in the arrest of five suspects, who were immediately referred for questioning.”
In addition to the three U.S. soldiers wounded in the attack, two Syrian service personnel were also injured, according to Syrian state news outlet SANA.
The Syrian Interior Ministry said it had analyzed the attacker only days before the shooting and had determined he may have extremist beliefs, but a decision on his fate had still been pending.
The U.S.-led coalition against ISIS has conducted air strikes and ground operations in Syria to root out suspected terrorists, often alongside support from Syria’s security forces.
Last month, Syria undertook a national effort to combat ISIS-backed operatives, arresting more than 70 people accused of having ties to the terrorist organization.
The United States has troops deployed in northeastern Syria in support of its decade-long campaign against ISIS, which controlled regions of Syria and Iraq from 2014 to 2019.
Syria now has a government led by former opposition fighters who overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2024 after a 13-year civil war. The current government includes members of Syria’s previous Al Qaeda branch who left that organization and then fought against ISIS.
Trump Says ‘Big Damage’ Coming to ISIS in Syria
Trump, discussing the shooting during a Christmas reception ceremony at the White House on Sunday, said the Syrian government and its new president, Al-Sharaa, “fought by our side.”
He said two of the three American soldiers who were wounded are already out of the hospital, and the last is going to recover.
“I can tell you, in Syria, there will be a lot of damage done to the people that did it. They got the person, the individual person, but there’ll be big damage done,” Trump said.
A group of bipartisan U.S. lawmakers on Sunday called on the Trump administration to continue collaborating with the Syrian government to oust ISIS after the deadly shooting of American troops.
“ISIS is still the most capable and dangerous Islamic terrorist group, who have already demonstrated that their intent is to strike even within the United States,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News in a Sunday interview.
Jack Phillips and Reuters contributed to this report.
By Jacob Burg
