Two US soldiers, one civilian killed in ambush in Syria

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Two US soldiers and a civilian were killed in an ambush in Syria’s western Homs province on Saturday, while three other American soldiers and two Syrian security members were wounded, according to the Pentagon and Syrian state media.

“Two United States Army soldiers and one civilian U.S. interpreter were killed, and three were wounded,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a post on X.

Parnell said the attack occurred as the soldiers were conducting “a key leader engagement” in support of ongoing counter-ISIS and counterterrorism operations in the region, adding that the incident is under investigation.

“The savage who perpetrated this attack was killed by partner forces,” US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in a separate post on X.

Syrian state media reported that Syrian security forces and US troops came under fire near the city of Palmyra while conducting a joint field patrol.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), citing a security source, said the attack injured two members of the Syrian security forces. The source added that traffic on the Deir ez-Zor–Damascus international highway was temporarily halted and that US helicopters evacuated the wounded to the al-Tanf base amid heavy air activity in the area.

“This attack took place in an area where the Syrian President does not have control,” a Pentagon official told Rudaw.

Syria officially joined the US-led coalition against ISIS in November following a landmark meeting between US President Donald Trump and Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House, the first such encounter with a Syrian president in more than eight decades.

Days before the meeting, the US Treasury formally removed Sharaa from its terrorist designation list. Sharaa led the overthrow of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad last year while heading the now-dissolved jihadist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

ISIS seized large areas of Syria and Iraq in 2014 but was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019, two years after its defeat in Iraq. The group has since continued insurgent attacks and has sought to regain ground.


Diyar Kurda contributed to this report from Washington.