Two US service members and a civilian interpreter were killed yesterday in an “ambush carried out by a lone sniper from the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria,” according to a statement from the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which reported that three other service members were wounded and that the attacker was killed.

According to the information According to the official statement, the shooting occurred during a joint mission by U.S. and Syrian forces in a historic central city near Palmyra. President Trump and U.S. military officials attributed the attack to ISIS. “This was an ISIS attack on the United States and Syria, in a very dangerous area of ??Syria, which is not totally under their control,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “The President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is extremely outraged and disturbed by this attack. There will be very severe retaliation.” Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, the State Department reported. According to a statement, al-Shaibani expressed his condolences and reiterated the Syrian government's commitment to reducing and destroying the shared threat of ISIS. The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, called the shooting “a domestic terrorist attack.” Saturday's attack was the first with fatalities since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a year ago. The United States has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Islamic State and to thwart Iranian influence. There are currently about 900 troops stationed there. They are mainly stationed in the northeast, under Kurdish control, and at the Al-Tanf base in the southeastern desert, near the borders with Iraq and Jordan. Palmyra, home to ancient ruins declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was controlled by ISIS at the height of its territorial expansion in Syria.