After two American service members and one civilian were killed in Syria by a gunman allegedly tied to ISIS, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said Sunday that the U.S. should work with the Syrian government to combat the terror group.
“We have to be very aggressive and work with the new government in Syria. We have our opportunity, for the first time in a long time, to work with a Syrian government that shares many of our own hopes and aspirations in terms of defeating ISIS,” Reed, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told host Jacqui Heinrich on “Fox News Sunday.”
U.S. Central Command confirmed the incident Saturday, noting on the social platform X that three other service members were injured in an “ambush by a lone ISIS gunman” who was “engaged and killed.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on X that the gunman was “killed by partner forces.”
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said in a Saturday release that the two service members killed and the three wounded were members of the Iowa National Guard.
Troops were conducting a joint field patrol alongside Syrian security forces near the city of Palmyra, according to SANA, the government-backed news agency. Three Syrian security members were also injured.
A Pentagon official told the Hill Saturday that the attack occurred in an area where Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa “does not have control.”
Al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda operative who was previously jailed by American forces in Iraq, took over Syria last December after former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia before opposition fighters entered Damascus.
President Trump vowed retaliation on Saturday, adding on his Truth Social platform that al-Sharaa is “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.” The two leaders met at the White House last month, with Trump lifting al-Sharaa’s designated global terrorist status beforehand.
Reed said Sunday that U.S. intelligence indicates that ISIS is “still the most capable and the most dangerous Islamic terrorist group,” and said the country should work “proactively” to protect American service members abroad.
“We do have to go, but not just [for] one-off retaliation, but a conscious effort to eliminate ISIS from Syria and other places,” Reed added.