AFP, Damascus

Syria’s interior ministry said yesterday the gunman who killed three Americans in the central Palmyra region the previous day was a member of the security forces who was to have been fired for extremism.

Two US troops and a civilian interpreter died in what the Syrian government described as a “terrorist attack” on Saturday, while Washington said it had been carried out by an Islamic State group (IS) militant who was then killed.

The Syrian authorities “had decided to fire him” from the security forces before the attack for holding “extremist Islamist ideas” and had planned to do so yesterday, interior ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba said.

A Syrian security official told AFP yesterday that “11 members of the general security forces were arrested and brought in for questioning after the attack”. The gunman had belonged to the security forces “for more than 10 months.”