US President Donald Trump has said that the United States will retaliate against DAESH if its forces are attacked again, after three US military personnel were killed by a gunman in Syria.
Two US troops and a civilian were killed and three other service members injured in an ambush carried out by a DAESH gunman in Syria, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Saturday.
“On December 13, two US service members and one US civilian were killed, and three service members were injured, as a result of an ambush by a lone DAESH gunman in Syria,” CENTCOM said in a statement on X.
“The gunman was engaged and killed,” it added.
Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed the casualties, saying the dead civilian was a US interpreter.
Prior warnings from Syria
Syrian Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al Din al Baba told the state-run TV channel Alikhbaria that the internal security directorate had issued “prior warnings to partner forces in the Badiya region about the possibility of breaches or anticipated attacks by DAESH.”
He said that international coalition forces “did not take the Syrian warnings about a potential DAESH breach into account.”
The spokesperson said a gunmen affiliated with DAESH opened fire at the entrance of a security headquarter in the Palmyra desert area.
Authorities “are verifying whether the attacker had direct links to the DAESH group or merely held its ideology,” he added.
“The attacker did not have any ties within the internal security forces and was not an escort to the leadership,” he said.
Local media earlier reported that two Syrian security personnel were also injured in the attack.
“Cowardly terrorist ambush”
US special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack strongly condemned the attack as a “cowardly terrorist ambush.”
“We mourn the loss of three brave US service members and civilian personnel and wish a speedy recovery to the Syrian troops wounded in the attack,” Barrack said on X.
“We remain committed to defeating terrorism with our Syrian partners.”
US forces operate in Syria as part of an international coalition against DAESH, which was formed under US leadership in 2014. Syria joined the coalition on November 12, 2025.
The coalition has carried out military operations against DAESH in Syria and Iraq since its formation, involving several countries, though Damascus was not previously a party to it.
Since the overthrow of the former regime of Bashar al Assad in December 2024, Syria’s new administration has been seeking to restore security and stabilise conditions across the country.
