DAMASCUS: Gunmen shot dead four members of Syria´s security forces in the country´s northwest on Sunday, the interior ministry and state media said.
“Four members of the interior ministry´s road security department were killed, and a fifth was wounded, when their patrol was targeted while on duty on the Maaret al-Numan road” in Idlib province, the ministry said in a statement.
The official SANA news agency reported that gunmen had opened fire on the personnel.
Neither identified the attackers.
The Idlib region was a bastion of rebel and jihadist groups including foreign fighters before Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad last December in a lightning offensive.
The attack comes a day after an assault on a joint US-Syrian patrol in Palmyra, central Syria killed two American soldiers and a translator.
US President Donald Trump called the incident “an ISIS attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria”, using another term for the Islamic State group (IS), and vowed “very serious retaliation”.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani called the Saturday attack “a new challenge in the fight against terrorism”.
Syria´s new authorities are trying to stabilise the country after over a decade of civil war.
Following Saturday´s attack, authorities launched an operation against IS group cells across the Homs province, where Palmyra is located.
