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Two US soldiers and a civilian American interpreter were killed in an attack in Syria that wounded three additional US troops on Saturday.
The Americans came under assault during a counterterrorism operation, according to the Pentagon. It marked the first deaths of US service members in Syria since the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad just over a year ago.
“The attack occurred as the soldiers were conducting a key leader engagement”, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted on social media on Saturday, referring to a meeting with important local officials.
“Their mission was in support of ongoing counter-ISIS/counterterrorism operations in the region”.
A Pentagon official said that “initial assessments show the attack was likely carried out by Isis” in “an area where the Syrian president does not have control.” Parnell said the attack was under investigation.
US President Donald Trump promised “very serious retaliation” against Isis and called those killed “three great patriots”.
Two members of Syria’s security forces were also injured in the attack, Syria’s national news agency reported.
The Pentagon said the attack occurred in Palmyra in the desert of central Syria. US troops have long been based at the nearby Al-Tanf military base, along with Free Syrian Army allies. However, Syria’s interior ministry said it occurred in the desert in the east of the country, where Isis is known to be active.
US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said the attack was “an ambush by a lone Isis gunman” who was killed.
The gunman was a member of Syria’s security forces with “extremist ideology” who did not hold a leadership position, Syria’s interior ministry spokesman said on State TV.
He said that Syria’s security forces had warned their international partners that there were preliminary reports of expected attacks by Isis but that “these forces did not heed the Syrian warnings”.
For years US forces have been in Syria primarily to combat Isis. There were roughly 2,000 US troops in Syria in December 2024, but in April the Pentagon said it would bring that level down to “less than 1,000,” assessing that the terrorist group’s capabilities had been degraded.
The US military has increased its co-operation with Damascus on Isis in recent months and is said to be considering an expansion of its military presence in Syria by sending troops to an air base in the Syrian capital.
Washington’s primary ally in the fight against Isis has been the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia which controls the country’s north-east. Talks to merge the SDF and Damascus’s security forces have stalled, despite pressure from Washington to come to a resolution.
Last month, Ahmed al-Sharra became the first Syrian president to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946.
Sharaa formally joined the 89-country coalition to defeat Isis during his meeting with Trump, who called the Syrian president “a very strong leader”.
Sharaa has courted western and Arab states which, at Washington’s urging, have lifted most of the economic sanctions imposed on Assad’s Syria and built closer ties with the new government.
But sectarian violence has erupted in Syria at times since Assad’s fall, including clashes between government-backed forces and gunmen from the country’s Alawite and Druze religious minorities in which hundreds of civilians from both communities were killed.
After Saturday’s attack, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said: “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.”