Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed (D-RI) encouraged a “very aggressive” response to the ISIS attack that killed three Americans, including two U.S. Army soldiers, in Syria on Saturday.
An ISIS gunman on Saturday opened fire on American and Syrian troops in Palmyra, Syria, who were conducting a leader engagement as part of an counter-ISIS and counterterrorism operation in the region, according to chief pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell. President Donald Trump promised “very serious retaliation” following the attack.
Reed gave his support to fight back after the shooting in an interview Sunday morning on Fox News Sunday, calling ISIS “the most capable and the most dangerous Islamic terrorist group.”
“We have to be very aggressive and work with the new government in Syria,” Reed said. “We have an 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. So we do have to go with, not just one-off retaliation, but a conscious effort to eliminate ISIS from Syria and other places.”
In his Truth Social post vowing a U.S. response to the attack, Trump said it occurred in an area the new Syrian government, installed earlier this year after the fall of the Assad regime, does not “fully” control.
“This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them. The president of Syria, Ahmed al Sharaa, is extremely angry and disturbed by this attack. There will be very serious retaliation,” Trump wrote.
Trump previously met with interim Syrian President Sharaa at the White House in November.
In a readout published by the State Department Sunday morning, spokesman Tommy Pigott gave an update on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s call with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al Shaibani on Sunday.
“Foreign Minister Al-Shaibani offered condolences and reiterated the commitment of the Syrian government to degrade and destroy the shared threat of ISIS. The United States will hold all who hurt and threaten Americans accountable,” Pigott said in a statement.
Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN), also on the Senate Armed Services Committee, vowed on Sunday that the ISIS members responsible for the Saturday attack would have “hell to pay.”
“There will be hell to pay for those who are responsible for that attack on American troops. But Donald Trump rooted out and took out the ISIS caliphate in his first term without starting another forever war. He’s going to do that again and I’m going to be there to back him up,” Banks said.
