US soldiers, civilian interpreter killed during ambush in Syria by apparent ISIS gunman: Officials
ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Two U.S. soldiers and one civilian U.S. interpreter were killed in Syria Saturday after they were ambushed by a likely ISIS gunman, U.S. officials said.
The gunman was killed by “partner forces” during a skirmish, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Three other service members were injured during the incident in Palmyra, Syria, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. Two U.S. officials told ABC News the wounded were American.
“The attack occurred as the soldiers were conducting a key leader engagement. Their mission was in support of on-going counter-ISIS / counter-terrorism operations in the region,” Parnell said in a statement.
This marked the first combat deaths since President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office.
Two U.S. officials told ABC News that Saturday’s attack “took place in an area where the Syrian President does not have control.”
The identities of the soldiers were not immediately revealed due to ongoing next of kin notifications, officials said.
The three American fatalities in today’s attack in Syria are the first combat deaths in that country since 2019 when four Americans were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Manbij, Syria.
Prior to today there had been 10 U.S. military deaths in Syria, including a mix of hostile and non-hostile deaths. The most recent U.S. military death in Syria was a non-hostile death in February 2022.
People, including a man holding a placard that shows Greenland covered in an American flag, Xed out and that reads: Our Land, Not Yours”, gather to march in protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and his announced intent to acquire Greenland on January 17, 2026 in Nuuk, Greenland. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Thousands of people thronged the snowy streets of the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk on Saturday to have their say on a transatlantic crisis that has shaken the 76-year-old NATO alliance.
“Greenland for Greenlanders,” “Our land, not yours,” and “Yankee go home” were among the signs held aloft by marchers, accompanied by a plethora of red-and-white Greenlandic flags.
The 56,000 Greenlanders who inhabit the world’s largest island — which is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark — have found themselves at the center of a geopolitical storm, as U.S. President Donald Trump wages an escalating pressure campaign to acquire the territory despite intense opposition from Greenlanders, Danes and America’s NATO allies.
The message of the weekend march in Nuuk was clear. But many Greenlanders fear that their voices are being lost in the transatlantic furor, Pele Broberg — the leader of the pro-independence Naleraq party — told ABC News.
“We are currently being caught in broader political conflicts driven by opposition to Donald Trump, because we are just a stepping stone between the Europeans and the Americans,” Broberg said.
“Everybody is busy and stepping on Greenland to make a point that Donald Trump is a bad man,” he added. “I’m not a pro-Trump guy. I’m not pro anything with the U.S. with regards to how they’re handling this situation.”
‘Territories don’t have any rights’ Naleraq is the second-largest party and the official opposition in Greenland’s parliament. While Greenlandic political parties have agreed on independence as a shared eventual goal, Naleraq is widely seen as pushing for a more immediate breakaway from Denmark. The party is also considered by observers to be the most open to U.S. cooperation.
Broberg was clear that he considers Copenhagen at least partly responsible for the crisis engulfing Greenland. “The problem is that everybody talked about the Greenlandic people without the Greenlandic people,” he said.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has repeatedly said that Greenland belongs to Greenlanders and that no decision on the island’s future can be made without their agreement. But Broberg said that the framing of Trump’s bid to acquire Greenland as an attack on Denmark has sown confusion.
“Either Greenland truly belongs to the Greenlandic people, or it is treated as part of the Danish Kingdom. In practice, it cannot be both,” he said. Copenhagen, he said, “has managed to marginalize the Greenlandic government … They have managed to make it a matter of the Danish Kingdom and not the Greenlandic people.”
“Territories don’t have any rights — peoples have rights,” Broberg added.
Broberg said he believes there is “no doubt” that the Danish government is using the current crisis to undermine the goal of Greenlandic independence, using the threat of U.S. domination as a foil.
The Greenlandic government — currently led by the Demokraatit party — and Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen have made clear they have no intention of joining the U.S.
“If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark,” Nielsen said during a press conference earlier this month. “Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”
The next general election in Greenland is scheduled for 2029, the year Trump’s second term ends.
Amid Trump’s threats, the leaders of all five political parties holding seats in Greenland’s parliament also released a joint statement. “We do not want to be Americans, we do not want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” they said.
A bipartisan U.S. Congressional delegation traveled to Denmark last weekend in a bid to reassure Danes and Greenlanders of their support. Delegation leader Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said at an event in Copenhagen, “I hope that the people of the Kingdom of Denmark do not abandon their faith in the American people.”
Broberg, whose party placed second in last year’s elections with 24% of the vote, suggested there had been a damaging lack of communication between Nuuk and Washington.
“The problem is that they are reacting out of panic rather than having a clear strategy,” Broberg said of the Greenlandic government. “I encouraged them last year, before the elections, to actually go to speak to the U.S. representatives. But they didn’t want to do that because they felt insulted by the way they were talked about.”
‘This started with Trump’ Trump first raised the prospect of acquiring the minerals-rich island in his first term. Frederiksen at that time dismissed the proposal as “absurd.”
President Joe Biden’s administration also showed a keen interest in Greenland, though it engaged in a softer approach. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the island in 2021 and told reporters he was there “because the United States deeply values our partnership and wants to make it even stronger.”
His trip followed bilateral successes in 2020 — before Trump left office — that saw the U.S. reopen its Nuuk consulate, expand cooperation at the American Thule Air Base, since renamed as the Pituffik Space Base, and agree to a new economic collaboration strategy.
Broberg said it is clear that Greenland is part of the long-term, bipartisan U.S. strategic picture. But the crisis over the island’s sovereignty, he said, “started with Donald Trump.”
“We’re not a pro-Trump or pro-U.S. party,” he said. “We’re a pro-Greenland party. We don’t tolerate anything of what came out of the American president’s mouth with regards to Greenland and its people’s rights.”
Broberg, a former Greenlandic foreign minister, urged dialogue. “You have to work this problem, not become the problem,” he said.
Still, Broberg acknowledged that the situation “has escalated to a point where simple solutions are no longer available,” citing the brewing transatlantic trade war. “I don’t see a way out of this that doesn’t involve an election in Greenland.”
Broberg said Naleraq foresees a free association agreement with Denmark twinned with a defense-and security-agreement with the U.S., under which Washington would gain exclusive rights to military operations on the island.
“Under the current defense agreement, the U.S. does not hold full military exclusivity over Greenland,” he said, referring to the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement that gave the U.S. military access across the island. “That’s why you can see that Donald Trump looked at the stationing of troops this week as an escalation, as a provocation.”
Broberg also said Naleraq has discussed the formation of a Greenlandic coast guard — with personnel potentially numbering in the low thousands — to help guard Greenland’s 27,000-mile coastline.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed suggestions that a larger U.S. military footprint on Greenland can address his purported concerns over Russian and Chinese presence in the High North. “I could put a lot of soldiers there right now if I want. But you need more than that. You need ownership,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One this month.
Nonetheless, Broberg said his party is “genuinely interested” in working with the U.S. on security and trade. “We are, from a political point of view, looking to be globalist. We are a free trade country. We don’t impose tariffs on anybody, no matter what,” he said.
Asked if he was currently in touch with the Trump administration, Broberg replied, “Not at all.”
Trump has been dismissive of Greenland’s prime minister. After Nielsen said the island would not join the U.S., Trump told reporters, “That’s their problem. I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”
Subs in the fjords Trump’s reasoning for wanting “complete and total control” of Greenland is the purported threat posed by Russia and China in the Arctic.
NATO allies have said they agree that regional military capabilities and readiness should be bolstered. Last year, Copenhagen announced a $6.5 billion Arctic defense package in response to U.S. criticism that it had failed to adequately protect Greenland.
And last week, eight NATO nations sent small contingents of troops to Greenland for what they said were military exercises. In an interview early this week, Broberg was fiercely critical of what he described as that “very stupid” move, saying he felt it would be interpreted as “an escalation” by the U.S.
Broberg also said it was a mistake to send the troops to Nuuk and Greenland’s west coast. “The Russians are on the east coast, they’re in the northeast,” he said.
“If they really wanted to placate the US … they should put them on the northeast coast where nobody lives,” Broberg added.
Asked whether the Russian-Chinese threat to Greenland was genuine or concocted, Broberg replied, “I think the truth is somewhere in between … You don’t have smoke without some fire.”
But he noted that hunting parties — traveling over the frozen terrain quickly and quietly on dogsleds, a mode of transport Trump appeared to mock when criticizing Danish military capabilities in Greenland — “have, on occasion, reported seeing submarines near the coast or fjords.”
“We have never been told what kind of subs there are. But the presumption is Russian subs. So there is some truth to it. But if it’s crawling with them, or if it’s one every 10 years — I have no idea.”
Yevhen Titov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
(LONDON) — The United States-proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan now has fewer points following negotiations in Switzerland to try to make the draft proposal more acceptable to Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official close to the matter.
The initial 28-point peace plan now has 19 points, according to the official. It is unclear what points were removed.
U.S., European and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva to discuss the contentious proposal put to Kyiv last week, with terms critics say would constitute a Ukrainian capitulation.
On Monday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump hinted at headway being made. “Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine???” he wrote on social media.
“Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening,” Trump added.
The talks come as fighting continues to wage in the nearly four-year war. At least four people were killed and 17 were injured in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv in what the local mayor called a “massive” Russian drone attack on Sunday night.
“Every night and every day bring new challenges for our city, new destructions and new work,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in a post to Telegram.
Kharkiv was among the targets of Russia’s latest overnight attack, which Ukraine’s air force said saw 162 drones launched into the country. Air defenses shot down or suppressed 125 drones, the air force said, with 37 craft impacting across 15 locations.
“The most damage was suffered by civilian infrastructure and private households in the Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions,” the air force said in a post to Telegram. “Unfortunately, there are civilian casualties.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down at least 103 Ukrainian drones overnight and into Monday afternoon. Four drones were shot down over the Moscow region, of which two were heading toward the capital, the ministry said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that the Geneva talks were “probably the most productive and meaningful meeting we’ve had so far in this entire process since we became involved.”
Rubio told reporters that the presidents of both countries would have to approve any framework, but said he was “comfortable” they would.
“We’re making some changes and adjustments in hopes of further narrowing the differences and getting closer to an outcome that both Ukraine and the United States can be comfortable with,” Rubio said.
Rubio later Sunday said that all parties had made “great strides” on a potential peace settlement with Russia. He also said that the deadline for the parties to reach an agreement is “as soon as possible” and that the process could extend past a Thanksgiving deadline set by Trump.
“It evolved. This is a work — this is a living, breathing document every day with input, it changes,” he said of the proposal.
Trump told reporters on Saturday that there is room for further negotiation. Asked by reporters whether the 28-point plan was his last offer, Trump replied, “No.” He added, “One way or another we’ll get it ended.”
But on Sunday, the president criticized Ukraine and its European backers, saying Ukrainian “‘leadership’ has expressed zero gratitude for our efforts” and noting that “Europe continues to buy oil from Russia.”
Asked later on Sunday whether the president still considered the Ukrainians “ungrateful,” Rubio said he believed Trump was now “quite pleased” with progress at the negotiating table.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said in a post to social media on Sunday that his delegation in Geneva “held a series of meetings — with the American side and with our European partners as well.”
“The delegation has just reported on the results of their discussions, and these were substantive conversations. A lot is changing — we are working very carefully on the steps needed to end the war,” Zelenskyy added.
“It is important that there is dialogue with the American representatives and there are signals President Trump’s team is hearing us,” Zelenskyy wrote.
Speaking at a forum in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday, the president said Kyiv will “continue working with partners, especially the United States, and look for compromises that strengthen, but not weaken us. And we will continue explaining how dangerous it is to pretend that aggression is something one can simply overlook and move on.”
In talks with the U.S. so far, Zelenskyy added, “we’ve managed to keep extremely sensitive points on the table, including the full release of all Ukrainian prisoners of war under the all-for-all formula and civilians, and the complete return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. These are important steps, but to achieve real peace, more, more is needed.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Russia had “not received anything official yet” regarding the outcomes of the Geneva talks.
“We are, of course, closely monitoring media reports, which have been abundant over the past few days, including from Geneva,” Peskov said.
“We have not seen any plan yet,” Peskov continued. “We have read the statement following the discussions in Geneva. Some adjustments have been made to the text we saw earlier. We will wait. Apparently, the dialogue is continuing there, and some contacts will continue. So far, I repeat, we have not received anything officially.”
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting of his Security Council that the Kremlin had received the new 28-point U.S. proposal. “I believe that it could also form the basis for a final peace settlement, but this text has not been discussed with us in detail,” Putin said.
“I believe the reason is the same: the U.S. administration has not yet managed to secure the agreement of the Ukrainian side, as Ukraine is opposed to it,” Putin added. “Apparently, Ukraine and its European allies are still under the illusion that they can inflict a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield.”
ABC News’ Joseph Simonetti contributed to this report.
Firefighters extinguish fires after Russian drone attacked residential areas in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, in February 11, 2026. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine / Handout /Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that another night of Russian long-range strikes further undermined “trust in all diplomatic efforts to end this war,” as the sides continue to maneuver for advantage in ongoing U.S.-led peace negotiations.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 129 drones into Ukraine overnight into Wednesday morning, of which 112 were shot down or suppressed. Fifteen drones impacted across eight locations, the air force said.
Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram that drones attacked the Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Dnipro and Poltava regions.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) said that four people were killed, three of them children, by a Russian drone strike on a residential building in the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Two other people were injured in the attack, the SES said.
Two people were killed and nine others by Russian strikes in the northeastern Sumy region, according to regional Gov. Oleg Hryhorov.
The SES also reported a drone attack on a residential property in the southern city of Zaporozhzhia, in which at least five people were injured. Zelenskyy said that the attack in the city also damaged a hospital.
Oleksandr Prokudin, the governor of the southern Kherson region, said six people were injured there by Russian shelling.
Each night of attacks “proves that it is only through tough pressure on Russia and clear security guarantees for Ukraine that we can put an end to the killings,” Zelenskyy said in a post to social media.
“Until the pressure on the aggressor is insufficient and until our, Ukraine’s security is not guaranteed, nothing else will work,” he added. “The Russian army is not preparing to stop — they are preparing to continue fighting.”
The Ukrainian president again called for Western partners to provide more air defense support to Ukraine to help blunt Russian attacks and “protect life.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down 118 Ukrainian drones over 15 regions overnight.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, said that temporary flight restrictions were introduced at airports in Cheboksary, Kaluga, Kazan, Saratov, Volgograd, Ulyanovsk and Nizhnekamsk.
Two people were injured in a drone attack on the western Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported in a post to Telegram.
In the southern region of Volgograd, Gov. Andrey Bocharov reported a fire at an industrial site in the south of the region, plus drone damage to an apartment building and a kindergarten.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, suggested in a post to Telegram that an attack occurred at a major oil refinery in the Volgograd area.
Both sides have continued their long-range strike campaigns despite recent trilateral peace talks with U.S. representatives. All participants at last week’s second round of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi described the meetings as constructive, but the negotiations did not appear to achieve a breakthrough on several contentious points.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week continued his recent criticism of ongoing peace negotiations.
In an interview published on Wednesday, Lavrov alleged to the Kremlin-aligned Empathy Manuchi online project that Kyiv and its European partners are sabotaging what he called the “balance of vital interests” agreed between Russia and the U.S. at the August summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
Putin and his top officials have repeatedly referred back to the “spirit and letter” of the Anchorage summit amid Trump’s efforts to hammer out a peace deal. The meeting was widely interpreted as a diplomatic and political coup for Putin.
Lavrov — as quoted by Russia’s state-run Tass news agency — claimed that the understandings reached in Alaska made it “entirely possible to quickly agree on a final agreement on a settlement,” but accused Kyiv and its European partners of trying to “turn it all to their advantage.”
Moscow, he said, will take steps to “ensure our own security.” Russia has demanded that Ukrainian forces withdraw from all of the partially-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions — which together form the Donbas region — as a part of any peace deal. Kyiv has refused the demand.
Lavrov said that Ukrainian troops “will eventually be driven out” of the area regardless.
