This handout {photograph} launched by the official Syrian Arab Information Company (SANA) reveals Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa, left, assembly with U.S. President Donald Trump on the White Home in Washington DC, Nov. 10. AFP-Yonhap
DAMASCUS — Two American troops and a civilian interpreter had been killed in central Syria on Saturday after an alleged member of the Islamic State (IS) group opened fireplace on a joint US-Syrian patrol, officers stated.
“We mourn the lack of three Nice American Patriots in Syria,” U.S. President Donald Trump stated on his Fact Social platform, vowing “very severe retaliation.”
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell stated the assault passed off in Palmyra, dwelling to UNESCO-listed historic ruins and as soon as managed by the IS group — also referred to as ISIS — through the peak of its territorial enlargement in Syria.
The lethal assault had been “an ambush by a lone ISIS gunman,” who was “engaged and killed,” U.S. Central Command stated on X.
Trump known as it “an ISIS assault towards the U.S., and Syria, in a really harmful a part of Syria, that isn’t totally managed by them.”
Three different wounded U.S. troops had been “doing nicely,” Trump stated.
The troopers “had been conducting a key chief engagement” in assist of counterterrorism operations when the assault occurred, Parnell stated, whereas US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack stated the ambush focused “a joint U.S.-Syrian authorities patrol”.
The incident is the primary of its form reported since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December final 12 months, and rekindled the nation’s ties with the US.
Trump stated Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who visited the White Home final month, was “extraordinarily offended and disturbed by this assault.”
Syria’s overseas minister Asaad al-Shaibani stated in a publish on X that Damascus “strongly condemns the terrorist assault that focused a joint Syria-U.S. counterterrorism patrol close to Palmyra”.
“We prolong our condolences to the households of the victims, in addition to to the American authorities and other people, and want the wounded a speedy restoration.”
This handout {photograph} launched by the official Syrian Arab Information Company (SANA) reveals Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa, middle proper, and Syrian Minister of Overseas Affairs and Expatriates Asaad Al-Shaibani, middle left, observing the navy parade in Damascus, Dec. 8, through the anniversary of the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad. AFP-Yonhap
‘Infiltration’
A Syrian navy official who requested anonymity stated the pictures had been fired “throughout a gathering between Syrian and American officers” at a Syrian base in Palmyra.
A witness, who requested to stay nameless, stated he heard the pictures coming from inside the bottom.
Nonetheless, a Pentagon official talking on the situation of anonymity instructed AFP the assault “passed off in an space the place the Syrian President doesn’t have management.”
In an interview on state tv, Syrian Inside Ministry spokesman Anwar al-Baba stated there had been “prior warnings from the interior safety command to allied forces within the desert area” of a possible IS “infiltration.”
“The worldwide coalition forces didn’t take the Syrian warnings of a potential IS infiltration into consideration,” he stated.
In keeping with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, which has a large community of sources inside Syria, the assembly got here as a part of an “American technique to strengthen its presence and foothold within the Syrian desert.”
The official SANA information company reported that helicopters evacuated the wounded to the Al-Tanf base in southern Syria, the place American troops are deployed as a part of the Washington-led world coalition towards the IS group.
Final month, throughout al-Sharaa’s historic go to to Washington, Damascus formally joined the coalition.
IS seized swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory in 2014 throughout Syria’s civil battle, earlier than being territorially defeated within the nation 5 years later.
Its fighters nonetheless keep a presence, nonetheless, significantly in Syria’s huge desert.
U.S. forces are deployed in Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northeast in addition to at Al-Tanf close to the border with Jordan.
