President Trump, via our military, decisively defeated ISIS in his first term. The group is attempting to make a comeback. It’s time to pulverize them again.
The New York Post is reporting:
President Trump vowed to respond Saturday after an attack on US and coalition forces killed three US service members in Palmyra, Syria.
“We will retaliate,” Trump said, asked by reporters about the incident as he left the White House Saturday to attend the Army-Navy football game.
“We mourn the loss of three great patriots in Syria. We know how it happened. It was an ambush — terrible,” Trump said.
“We also have three wounded that seem to be doing pretty well,” he added. “But we mourn the loss, these are three great people. And it’s just a terrible thing.”
He said Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was “fighting along with us” and was devastated by what happened. “This was an ISIS attack on us and Syria. We mourn the loss and we pray for them and the parents and their loved ones.”
Three Americans including two US Army soldiers were killed in Palmyra, during the ambush when an attacker opened fire on their desert patrol.
Two Syrian military personnel were injured, according to Syrian media.
“Today in Palmyra, Syria, two United States Army soldiers and one civilian U.S. interpreter were killed, and three were wounded,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.
“The attack occurred as the soldiers were conducting a key leader engagement. Their mission was in support of on-going counter-ISIS / counter-terrorism,” he added.
He said the soldiers’ names and other information was being withheld until 24 hours after the notification of their next of kin.
MPR News added:
The shooting took place near historic Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, which earlier said two members of Syria’s security force and several U.S. service members had been wounded. The casualties were taken by helicopter to the al-Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.
Syria’s Interior Ministry spokesman Nour al-Din al-Baba said a gunman linked to IS opened fire at the gate of a military post. He added that Syrian authorities are looking into whether the gunman was an IS member or only carried its extreme ideology. He denied reports that suggested that the attacker was a security member.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted 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 U.S. has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.
The U.S. had no diplomatic relations with Syria under Assad, but ties have warmed since the fall of the five-decade Assad family rule. Al-Sharaa, made a historic visit to Washington last month where he held talks with Trump. It was the first White House visit by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946 and came after the U.S. lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the Assads’ rule.
Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled Bashar Assad in December 2024 and was named the country’s interim leader in January. Al-Sharaa once had ties to al-Qaida and had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.
Last month, Syria joined the international coalition fighting against the IS as Damascus improves its relations with Western countries following the ouster of Assad when insurgents captured his seat of power in Damascus.
IS was defeated on the battlefield in Syria in 2019 but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in the country. The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.
U.S. troops, which have maintained a presence in different parts of Syria — including Al-Tanf garrison in the central province of Homs — to train other forces as part of a broad campaign against IS, have been targeted in the past. One of the deadliest attacks occurred in 2019 in the northern town of Manbij when a blast killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians as well as others from Syria while conducting a patrol.