- The Syrian government describes the attack on the US convoy as a “terrorist attack”.
- Syria arrests 11 security members after killing US personnel.
- Washington says deadly attack carried out by Daesh militant.
Syria’s interior ministry said on Sunday that the gunman who killed three Americans in the central Palmyra region the day before was a member of the security forces who had been fired for extremism.
Two US troops and a civilian interpreter died in what the Syrian government described as a “terrorist attack” on Saturday, while Washington said it had been carried out by a Daesh militant who was then killed.
Syrian authorities “had decided to fire him” from the security forces before the attack for harboring extremist ideas and had planned to do so on Sunday, interior ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba told state television.
A Syrian security official told AFP on Sunday that “11 members of the general security forces were arrested and brought in for questioning after the attack”.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gunman had been with the security forces “for more than 10 months and was posted in several cities before being transferred to Palmyra”.
Palmyra, home to Unesco-listed ancient ruins, was controlled by Daesh at the height of its territorial expansion in Syria.
The incident is the first of its kind since the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad last December.
US President Donald Trump promised “very serious retaliation” after Saturday’s attack.
A Syrian defense ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity that prior to the attack, US forces had “arrived by road from the Al-Tanf military base” in southeastern Syria, near the border with Jordan.
“The joint Syrian-American delegation first toured the city of Palmyra, then proceeded to the T-4 airbase before returning to a base in Palmyra,” the source added.
A Syrian military official, who requested anonymity, said Saturday that the shots were fired “during a meeting between Syrian and American officers” at a Syrian base in Palmyra.
However, a Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the attack “took place in an area where the Syrian president does not have control.”
Warnings
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the soldiers were “conducting a key leadership engagement” in support of counter-terrorism operations when the attack took place, while US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said the ambush targeted “a joint US-Syrian government patrol”.
Trump called the incident a Daesh attack “against the United States and Syria in a very dangerous part of Syria that is not fully controlled by them”.
He said the three other US troops injured in the incident were “fine”.
The official SANA news agency said the attack also wounded two members of the Syrian security forces.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said Damascus “strongly condemns the terrorist attack”.
In an interview on state television on Saturday, Syrian Interior Ministry spokesman Anwar al-Baba said there had been “prior warnings from the internal security command to the allied forces in the desert region”.
The international coalition forces did not heed the Syrian warnings of a possible Daesh infiltration, he said.
Daesh captured parts of Syrian and Iraqi territory in 2014 during Syria’s civil war, before being territorially defeated in the country five years later.
However, its fighters still maintain a presence, particularly in Syria’s vast desert.
Last month, during Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s historic visit to Washington, Damascus formally joined the US-led global coalition against Daesh.
American forces are deployed in Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northeast as well as at Al-Tanf near the border with Jordan.
