Syria’s interior ministry confirmed on Sunday that the gunman who killed three Americans in the central Palmyra region on Saturday was a member of the country’s security forces. The ministry said the officer had been scheduled for dismissal due to his extremist beliefs.
Two US troops and a civilian interpreter were killed in what the Syrian government described as a “terrorist attack,” while Washington attributed the assault to a fighter linked to the militant Islamic State group (IS). According to interior ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba, Syrian authorities had decided to fire the perpetrator for holding “extremist Islamist ideas,” and the dismissal was planned for Sunday.
Following the attack, 11 members of the general security forces were arrested and questioned, a Syrian security official said. The gunman had served in the security forces for over 10 months and had been posted to several cities before being transferred to Palmyra, home to UNESCO-listed ancient ruins and a former stronghold of IS.
This incident marks the first of its kind since the overthrow of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December last year. In response to the attack, US President Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation.”
Syrian officials stated that prior to the attack, US forces had arrived overland from the Al-Tanf military base in southeastern Syria. A Syrian defence ministry source said a joint US-Syrian delegation toured Palmyra, visited the T-4 airbase, and returned to a base in Palmyra, during which the shooting occurred. A Syrian military official added that the gunfire erupted “during a meeting between Syrian and American officers.”
However, a Pentagon official noted that the attack occurred in an area beyond the direct control of the Syrian president. Syrian state television reported that in response, authorities launched operations against IS cells across Homs province, where Palmyra is located.
US Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said the attack reinforced the US strategy to “enable capable Syrian partners, with limited US operational support, to hunt down ISIS networks, deny them safe haven, and prevent their resurgence.” Meanwhile, Syria’s interior ministry emphasized that the persistence of terrorist attacks highlights the importance of Damascus’ international engagement in combating terrorism.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell described the US personnel as conducting a “key leader engagement” in support of counter-terrorism operations, while Barrack characterized the ambush as targeting a “joint US-Syrian government patrol.” Trump called the incident “an ISIS attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria” and reported that the three other US troops wounded were “doing well.” The attack also injured two members of the Syrian security forces, according to state media.
Interior ministry officials said warnings of a possible IS infiltration had been issued in advance by internal security, but that the international coalition forces “did not take the Syrian warnings into consideration.” IS, which seized large areas of Syria and Iraq in 2014 during the civil war, was territorially defeated in Syria five years later, though its fighters remain active, particularly in the Syrian desert.
Last month, during Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s historic visit to Washington, Damascus formally joined the US-led global coalition against IS. Currently, US forces are deployed in Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northeast and at Al-Tanf near the Jordanian border, where they conduct counter-ISIS operations alongside local partners.
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