US President Donald Trump said Saturday “there will be very serious retaliation” against ISIS after three Americans, two soldiers and their civilian interpreter, were killed by a single gunman in an ambush targeting a joint US-Syrian government patrol in central Syria.
“We mourn the loss of three great patriots in Syria. We know how it happened, an ambush,” he told reporters at the White House.
Earlier, the Pentagon said initial assessments showed the attack was carried out by ISIS.
However, a Syrian Interior Ministry spokesperson said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security forces who held extremist ideas.
Nour Eddin al-Baba said Syrian forces had issued intelligence warnings to US-led forces and that the assailant was known to authorities ahead of the deadly attack.
He told Syrian state television that leadership in the country’s Internal Security Forces in the Badia region had alerted the US-led international coalition against ISIS in Syria about preliminary information “indicating a possible breach or expected ISIS attacks.”
“However, (coalition) forces did not take the Syrian warnings into account,” al-Baba said.
According to the Pentagon, the attacker was killed by “partner forces,” in a sign to the Syrian government forces.
Syrian state news agency SANA quoted a security source as saying that Syrian service personnel were injured, without providing further details.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on X, “Let it be known, 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.”
The US-led coalition has carried out airstrikes and ground operations in Syria targeting ISIS suspects in recent months, often with the involvement of Syria's security forces. Syria last month also carried out a nationwide campaign arresting more than 70 people accused of links to the group.
The United States has troops stationed in northeastern Syria as part of a decade-long effort to help a Kurdish-led force there.
