US troops among 20 killed in Manbij – IS claims hit

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BEIRUT, Jan 16, (Agencies): A bomb attack claimed by Islamic State killed US troops in northern Syria on Wednesday, weeks after US President Donald Trump said group was defeated there and he would pull out all American forces. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said 20 people were killed in the bomb attack in northern Syria on Wednesday, including five US troops.

A US official had earlier told Reuters four US troops had been killed and three wounded in the blast, which an Islamic State-affiliated site said was the work of a suicide bomber.

Others said only two had been killed. “The information I have is news pointing toward that there are five US soldiers and 20 died in total,” Erdogan said in a news conference with the Croatian president in Ankara.

Deadliest
The attack appears to be the deadliest on US forces in Syria since they deployed on the ground there in 2015. Erdogan said he did not believe the attack in the Syrian town of Manbij would impact Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria – “because I saw honourable Trump’s determination on this point,” he said. The US-led coalition fighting the Islamist militant group said that “US service members were killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol”, and that it was still gathering details.

The attack, which took place in the town of Manbij, controlled by rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al- Assad, appears to be the deadliest on US forces in Syria since they deployed on the ground there in 2015. Last month, Trump made a surprise announcement that he would withdraw all 2,000 US troops from Syria after concluding that Islamic State had been defeated there.

The announcement helped trigger the resignation of his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, stunned allies and raised fears of a long-threatened Turkish military offensive against USbacked Kurdish forces in northern Syria. A witness in the city said the attack had targeted a restaurant where US personnel were meeting members of the local militia that Washington backs there. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said 16 people had been killed in all, including two Americans. A militia source in north Syria also said two US troops had been killed.

Statement
Islamic State later put out a statement saying a Syrian fighter had detonated his explosive vest on a foreign patrol in Manbij. Two witnesses described the blast to Reuters. “An explosion hit near a restaurant, targeting the Americans, and there were some forces from the Manbij Military Council with them,” one said.

The Manbij Military Council militia has controlled the town since US-backed Kurdish-led forces took it from Islamic State in 2016. It is located near areas held by Russian-backed Syrian government forces and by anti-Assad fighters backed by Turkey. One of the witnesses said there was a “heavy” presence of military aircraft over Manbij following the blast, which took place near a vegetable market.

Photographs on a local Kurdish news site, which Reuters could not verify, showed two mutilated bodies, several other bodies lying on the ground with people gathered around them, damage to a building and vehicles, and blood smears on a wall. It was unclear whether the attack might influence Trump’s decision to give more time for the US withdrawal, a conflict he has tired of and described as “sand and death”.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said on Wednesday it was ready to help create a safe zone suggested by Trump in its region across north and east Syria. The US-backed SDF, led by the Kurdish YPG militia, said such a zone must have “international guarantees… that would prevent foreign intervention”, in an apparent reference to neighbouring Turkey. The SDF statement said it hoped to ensure stability at the border region by reaching agreements with Turkey, which has vowed to crush the YPG. Trump, who announced he was pulling US troops out of Syria last month, suggested in a tweet on day creating a safe zone without elaborating.

The SDF fears the US move to withdraw will give Turkey the opportunity to mount a new assault. Erdogan said on Tuesday he had discussed a safe zone which Turkey would set up inside Syria along the length of their border, during a phone call with Trump.

US arming of the YPG, the main American partner in the fight against Islamic State, has infuriated NATO ally Turkey. Ankara deems the Syrian Kurdish fighters terrorists linked to the Kurdish PKK movement that has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Erdogan will hold talks in Moscow next week to discuss Syria in light of the planned withdrawal of US troops, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday. Russia also intends to propose holding a three-way summit on Syria in Russia with Iran and Turkey, Ushakov told reporters at a briefing. Iran will keep military forces in Syria, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday, defying Israeli threats that they might be targeted if they do not leave the country. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that islamic raeli forces would continue to attack Iranians in Syria and warned them “to get out of there fast, because we will continue with our resolute policy”.

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