Two coalition troops — one American and British — were killed and five others wounded Friday in a bombing near American positions in the northern Syrian city of Manbij.
Officials from Operation Resolute Support, the main U.S.-backed mission battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, confirmed that the two troops died after their convoy was struck by a roadside bomb near the embattled Syrian city.
U.S. defense officials confirmed one of the casualties was an American, while officials from the U.K. Ministry of Defence said a British service member was killed, Reuters reported. The Pentagon has yet to release the name, rank or unit of the American killed in the attack.
The casualties are the first ones suffered by allied forces in Syria this year.
News of the attack comes as the Trump administration reportedly weighs a withdrawal from Syria, amid growing tensions with Turkey over Ankara’s aggressive counterterrorism campaign along the country’s southern border shared with Syria.
U.S. forces in Manbij and elsewhere would “be coming out of Syria like very soon,” Mr. Trump said during a town hall rally in Ohio Thursday.
“Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon, very soon, we’re coming out,” he said. “We’re going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be,” Mr. Trump added. The statement, which was reportedly not part of Mr. Trump’s original speech, came as a surprise to the administration’s national security team, given Mr. Trump’s vow not to make any such declarations to tip America’s hand to future military actions.
His comments also came hours after Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White told reporters that Washington would remain committed to the fight against the Islamic State terror group — also known as ISIS — in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the region.
“While the coalition has significantly degraded ISIS, important work remains to guarantee the lasting defeat of these violent extremists,” she told reporters at the Pentagon.
“The nature of our mission has not changed: The coalition remains committed to the lasting defeat of ISIS,” Ms. White said, noting the U.S. and its allies “will accomplish this by training, advising and assisting our partner forces in Iraq and Syria.”
For the past several months, Turkish forces have waged a brutal counterterrorism campaign in the Syrian enclave of Afrin, which Ankara claims is a major hub for Syrian Kurds allied with Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG.
Turkey has threatened to expand its Afrin operations west toward U.S. lines in Manbij, saying American military advisers could be targeted as part of that expanded offensive.
Large elements of the YPG or PYD make up the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the U.S.-backed confederation of Arab and Kurdish paramilitaries who flushed ISIS from its Syrian capital of Raqqa last year.
U.S. forces continue to train and equip SDF fighters — including those tied to the YPG and PYD — in Manbij as the anti-Islamic State offensive continues in Syria.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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