A 2014 file picture shows Islamic State billboards are seen along a street in Raqqa, eastern Syria. The billboard (R) reads: “We will win despite the global coalition.”
ISIS signals continued threat with warning after Palmyra attack
ISIS warning suggests the group continues to pose a serious threat and remains capable of destabilising Syria’s future, despite the heavy blows it has suffered over recent years.
Friday 19/12/2025
A 2014 file picture shows Islamic State billboards are seen along a street in Raqqa, eastern Syria. The billboard (R) reads: “We will win despite the global coalition.”
DAMASCUS –
The Islamic State group (ISIS) threatened to carry out further attacks against Syrian and US forces, in comments issued following an assault that targeted joint forces in Syria’s historic city of Palmyra last Saturday.
The warning suggests the group continues to pose a serious threat and remains capable of destabilising Syria’s future, despite the heavy blows it has suffered over recent years.
The ISIS group said the killing of US Pentagon personnel Palmyra was a “blow” to US forces and Syrian armed factions opposed to it, in its first public comment on the incident.
Two US Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed last Saturday when an attacker targeted a convoy of American and Syrian forces in Palmyra before being shot dead, the US military said. Three US soldiers were wounded.
In an article published on its Telegram channel on Thursday, Islamic State accused the United States and its Syrian-based allies of forming a single front against it. It used religious language to frame the assault as a decisive moment intended to dispel doubt among its supporters, but did not explicitly claim responsibility.
US President Donald Trump called the incident “terrible” and vowed retaliation.
Syria’s Interior Ministry said on Sunday it had arrested five people suspected of links to the shooting, describing the attacker as a member of the Syrian security forces suspected of sympathising with Islamic State.
The ministry said security units in Palmyra carried out the arrests in coordination with international coalition forces.
Syria has been cooperating with a US-led coalition against ISIS. The United States has troops stationed in northeastern Syria as part of a decade-long campaign against the group, which controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq from 2014 to 2019.