Two U.S. service members and one American civilian interpreter were killed in an ambush in central Syria on Saturday, December 13, 2025, according to U.S. Central Command. Three additional service members were wounded in the attack, which also injured two members of Syria’s Internal Security Forces.
U.S. Army soldiers were conducting a key leader engagement in support of ongoing counter-ISIS and counterterrorism operations in the region when the attack took place, according to Sean Parnell, Assistant to the Secretary of War for Public Affairs, Chief Pentagon Spokesman and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of War. The incident occurred near the historic city of Palmyra along the Deir ez-Zor–Damascus highway during a joint patrol with Syrian Internal Security Forces. According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), a lone gunman opened fire on the convoy before being killed by partner forces.
Casualties were evacuated by helicopter to the al-Tanf garrison near the borders with Iraq and Jordan. The road was temporarily sealed during the evacuation operation.
Conflicting Reports on the Attacker
CENTCOM initially stated the assailant as a lone attacker affiliated with the Islamic State group, and that they were investigating how the attacker accessed the convoy. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), however, reported that the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.
It later emerged that the SOHR report was accurate and the attacker was a Syrian security force member set to be fired on Sunday for his “extremist Islamist ideas,” according to interior ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba. Additional online reports claim the attacker was also a former senior commander with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and once led by the now-leader of Syria.
Multiple counterterrorism experts, including Sarah Adams, suggest this is not an attack by ISIS, but an attack by HTS fighters. Dr. Walid Phares, a Middle East and foreign policy expert, stated that Palmyra is controlled by the HTS regime, the “perpetrator is allegedly Mahmoud el Hussein, former member of the HTS … the attack was not “an outside” ISIS attack on a patrol, it was a jihadi terror attack on US personnel from the inside of a security meeting.”
Context of U.S. Presence in Syria
The United States maintains hundreds of troops in eastern Syria as part of an international coalition fighting the Islamic State group. U.S. forces, including those stationed at the al-Tanf garrison in Homs province, train partner forces as part of broader counterterrorism efforts.
While ISIS was defeated on the battlefield in Syria in 2019, the group’s sleeper cells continue to carry out attacks. The United Nations estimates ISIS maintains between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters across Syria and Iraq.
Shifting Political Landscape
The attack marks the first fatal incident involving U.S. troops in Syria since the fall of President Bashar Assad one year ago. Syria recently joined the international coalition against ISIS as Damascus works to improve relations with Western nations following Assad’s ouster.
With the end of the five-decade Assad family rule, interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa made a historic visit to Washington last month for talks with President Donald Trump. It marked a significant shift from the lack of diplomatic relations with Syria as it was the first White House visit by a Syrian leader since the country became independent nearly 80 years ago.
It also has brought controversy, given al-Sharaa’s history (under the nom de guerre Mohammed Al-Jolani) as the leader of HTS and its earlier version as a branch of al-Qaeda. al-Sharaa also was previously on the U.S. list of terrorists with a $10 million bounty, but this was lifted earlier in 2025.
This is not the first deadly attack on U.S. forces in Syria. In 2019, a blast in the northern town of Manbij killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians, along with Syrian nationals, during a patrol operation. One of those service members killed included Navy Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon Kent, wife of current Director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center.
Official Response and Victims
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued a statement on social media platform X condemning the attack and vowing retaliation: “Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”
The identities of the deceased service members, both Iowa National Guard soldiers, were originally withheld pending next-of-kin notification, in accordance with Department of War policy. The first to be identified was Nathaniel Howard, son of Meskwaki Nation Police Chief Jeffrey Bunn, through a post by the Chief on the Police Department’s Facebook page.
