United States President Donald Trump said today that the United States will retaliate, following the killing of two American soldiers and an American civilian in Syria, which the US blames on the Islamic State organization.
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"This is an Islamic State attack," the US president told reporters at the White House ahead of leaving for an Army-Navy football game in Baltimore.
He expressed condolences to the families of the three Americans killed and said that three others wounded in the same attack were "pretty well."
Two US military personnel and a civilian interpreter were killed today in an Islamic State attack in Syria, near Palmyra, where they were conducting counterterrorism operations, the Department of Defense in Washington announced.
Three soldiers were wounded at the time, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the attacker was killed by "partner forces" - Syria. Arab media reported that the attack was carried out by Islamic State forces and that Syrian soldiers who were on patrol with the Americans were also wounded.
This attack on US troops in Syria is the first with a fatal outcome since the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad a year ago.
The victims were transported by helicopter to the al-Tanaf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization, said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security forces.
Syrian Interior Ministry spokesman Nur al-Din al-Baba said the attacker, linked to the Islamic State group, opened fire at the gate of the military post. He added that Syrian authorities were investigating whether the attacker was a member of the Islamic State group or merely a proponent of its extremist ideology. He denied reports that the attacker was a member of the Syrian security forces.
The US has hundreds of troops in eastern Syria as part of the coalition fighting the Islamic State. American troops in Syria have been targeted in the past.
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