“There will be very serious retaliation,” said President Donald Trump in a Saturday afternoon Truth Social post after the military announced that two U.S. servicemembers and one civilian had been killed during an ISIS attack in Syria.
According to U.S. Central Command, the deaths were the result of an ambush by a lone ISIS gunman. ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham, is described by the U.S. government’s counter-terrorism guide as “a Salafi-jihadist group that has conducted or inspired thousands of terrorist attacks worldwide, killing and injuring tens of thousands of people.”
Central Command said the ISIS gunman was “engaged and killed.” In addition to the three fatalities, three other servicemembers were injured in the attack.
“As a matter of respect for the families and in accordance with Department of War policy, the identities of the service members will be withheld until 24 hours after their next of kin have been notified,” Central Command added.
In his Truth Social post, Trump said: “We mourn the loss of three Great American Patriots in Syria, two soldiers, and one Civilian Interpreter. Likewise, we pray for the three injured soldiers who, it has just been confirmed, are doing well. This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them. The President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.”
Trump met with Syria’s new president al-Sharaa, earlier this year, “marking the first time a U.S. president has met with his Syrian counterpart in 25 years,” according to C-SPAN. The leader replaced recently ousted former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
“The meeting in Riyadh marked a turning point for the war-torn country still adjusting to life without the Assad family, which had ruled the country with an iron fist for the past five decades,” C-SPAN added. It also noted that, just months before, al-Sharaa – a former rebel commander who founded the Jabhat al-Nusra militant group once affiliated with al-Qaeda – had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. Jabhat al-Nusra broke ties with al Qaeda in 2016 and worked to moderate its image.
Around the time of the meeting with al-Sharaa, Trump also announced the U.S. would remove sanctions on Syria at the urging of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Last month, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) said that al-Sharaa was meeting with Trump to “officially join the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.”
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