ISIS Killed Three Americans in Syria. Much Worse is Coming

On Saturday, December 13, the war that many Americans barely remember reached out and killed three of them.

In the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, a lone gunman opened fire during a lunchtime meeting on a joint base shared by U.S. forces and Syrian security personnel. Within moments, two American soldiers and a U.S. civilian interpreter were dead. Three more Americans and three Syrian personnel were wounded before the attacker was finally shot and killed.

The gunman was acting on behalf of the Islamic State.

For the United States, these were the first combat deaths since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term and the deadliest single day for U.S. forces in Syria since 2019. The immediate questions came fast and furious: How did this happen? Why are American troops still in Syria? And if ISIS can still carry out attacks like this, is the mission actually working?

For anyone closely watching the region, though, the more uncomfortable truth is this: none of this should have been surprising.

Palmyra: A Symbol That Never Let Go

Palmyra isn’t just another city on a map. Long before the Syrian civil war, it was one of the Middle East’s most famous historical sites. And when ISIS swept through the region in the mid-2010s, Palmyra became a centerpiece of its brutality. From 2015 to 2017, the group occupied the city, destroying ancient monuments, executing captives in public theaters, and looting priceless artifacts to fund its war effort.

Even after ISIS was driven out, Palmyra never stopped mattering to the group. It sits in a sparsely populated desert region where ISIS cells have remained active, moving quietly between towns, villages, and military outposts.

That was the environment on December 13 when U.S. forces and their Syrian partners gathered on a base inside the city.

Among them was a man who, on paper, belonged there.

The Infiltrator

The attacker wasn’t an outsider storming a perimeter. He was already inside.

Roughly two months earlier, he had joined Syria’s Interior Ministry and initially worked as a base security guard. Days before the attack, he had been reassigned to a different unit. Not because he’d earned a promotion—but because his superiors were suspicious.

Syrian officials now say he was already under surveillance as a suspected ISIS affiliate. Intelligence suggested that someone inside the security services was leaking information to the Islamic State, and this man was believed to be involved. Instead of detaining him immediately, Syrian forces chose to watch him, hoping to identify his contacts and uncover a broader network.

It was a gamble.

He was supposed to be far enough away from U.S. personnel to limit the risk. According to Syria’s Interior Ministry, he was just one day away from being removed entirely.

He didn’t wait.

During a midday meeting between American officers and Syrian counterparts, the infiltrator approached and opened fire at close range. Three Americans were killed almost instantly. Others were wounded as Syrian security personnel attempted to confront him. Within minutes, armed responders neutralized the attacker.

By then, the damage was done.

The two U.S. soldiers killed were National Guard members from Iowa. The civilian interpreter has not yet been publicly named.

Not an Isolated Day of Violence

The hours that followed saw sweeping raids across the surrounding Badia region as Syrian forces moved against known ISIS cells that had also been under surveillance. Five people were arrested inside Palmyra alone.

But even as those raids unfolded, ISIS was still striking.

The following day, December 14, four members of Syria’s internal security forces were killed in an ambush in Idlib province. Another was wounded.

And halfway across the world, ISIS-inspired violence exploded again.

At Australia’s Bondi Beach, during a Hanukkah celebration, a father and son who had pledged loyalty to the Islamic State killed 16 people and wounded 43 more. It was Australia’s deadliest mass shooting since Port Arthur in 1996. Investigators later found ISIS flags in the attackers’ vehicle.

That same weekend, German authorities disrupted a planned attack on a Christmas market in Bavaria, though officials say that plot does not appear to have been ISIS-linked.

Taken together, it was one of the bloodiest two-day periods for the Islamic State movement since its territorial defeat in the late 2010s.

And it underscored a reality analysts have been warning about for years.

ISIS is coming back.

Syria: The Perfect Breeding Ground

A decade after the fall of the so-called caliphate, Syria has once again become the center of ISIS activity.

The reasons are painfully clear. The country has only just emerged from a catastrophic civil war. Its central government is weak, its security forces overstretched, and large portions of the population deeply distrustful of Damascus. Minority communities, former Assad loyalists, and displaced civilians all live in an atmosphere of fear and resentment—exactly the conditions extremist movements exploit.

Importantly, this is not a case of the Syrian government supporting ISIS. Quite the opposite. Syria’s transitional leadership under Ahmed al-Sharab has been a bitter enemy of the Islamic State for over a decade. Just this November, Damascus officially joined the global coalition to defeat ISIS, reversing years of Assad-era refusal to cooperate.

Syrian forces are trying. They’re just not succeeding fast enough.

They rely heavily on surveillance rather than immediate arrests, hoping monitored cells will lead them to others. As the Palmyra attack showed, that strategy can—and does—backfire.

Meanwhile, Kurdish-led forces in northeastern Syria continue to fight ISIS where they can, but they’re under mounting pressure from Turkey and from Damascus itself. That pressure has forced them to divert resources away from counterterrorism just as foreign troop deployments shrink.

The result is a security vacuum—and ISIS knows exactly how to operate inside it.

ISIS, Rebuilt and Rewired

The Islamic State of today is not the Islamic State of 2014.

This version is more decentralized, more patient, and far more operationally aware. Rather than massing forces and declaring territory, ISIS has spread itself thin and wide across Syria. Cells blend into cities and villages, communicate through encrypted channels, and finance themselves like organized crime syndicates—through extortion, smuggling, kidnapping, and trafficking.

Globally, ISIS functions as part of a network. Affiliates in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia share resources, funding streams, and expertise. Digital tools, secretive financial networks, and even artificial intelligence play a role in recruitment and planning.

They’ve learned the hard lesson of their defeat: visibility invites annihilation.

So instead of chasing headlines with a caliphate, ISIS is focused on something far more dangerous—sustained chaos.

The Prison Problem

Perhaps the most alarming piece of this puzzle lies behind fences and walls.

In camps like al-Hol, roughly 25,000 refugees—mostly women and children—live under minimal supervision. ISIS loyalists inside these camps enforce their own rules, punish dissent, and indoctrinate children. Camp administrators have openly warned that radicalization is ongoing and systemic.

Nearby, more than 8,000 ISIS fighters are held in large prisons guarded by Kurdish forces whose numbers and resources are steadily shrinking.

ISIS understands what these prisons represent.

In 2022, an ISIS assault on al-Sina’a Prison led to the escape of hundreds of fighters and left over 500 people dead. Today, analysts warn that Kurdish forces would struggle to repel a similar attack. With U.S. support diminishing, it’s not even clear help would arrive in time.

ISIS knows that too.

If and when they attempt another mass jailbreak, they are likely to do it with overwhelming force—and with far better planning than last time.

One Gunman, Global Consequences

The Palmyra attack is a case study in asymmetric warfare.

One infiltrator. One rifle. One moment.

In its wake, the U.S. president is threatening retaliation. Confidence in Syria’s security forces has been shaken. Pressure is mounting on America to leave Syria entirely. Terror has spread in Australia. Governments worldwide are diverting resources toward counterterrorism.

Multiply that impact by the thousands of ISIS fighters currently operating in Syria—and by the thousands more who could be freed from prisons—and the danger becomes impossible to ignore.

When ISIS first emerged, the world got lucky. The group made strategic mistakes. It exposed itself. It fought conventionally against overwhelming airpower and lost.

This version won’t make the same errors.

It is smarter, quieter, and far more patient.

And the tragedies in Palmyra, Idlib, and Bondi Beach were not isolated events. They were warnings.

The world is waking up to the Islamic State’s resurgence—but it may already be too late to stop the next phase before it begins.