Turkey, US discuss Syria buffer zone as Manbij attack kills American troops
Russia's foreign minister calls for Syrian control of areas after US withdrawal; IS suicide bomber kills 16 in Manbij; more worries expressed about election fairness in Turkey.
ANKARA, Turkey — Russia and the Islamic State made separate claims of sorts to northern Syria today.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that after US troops withdraw, the territory should revert to the control of the Syrian government. And hours after Lavrov spoke, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the north-central Syrian town of Manbij, killing 16 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The bomber belonged to the Islamic State (IS, or ISIS), the group said in a statement quoted by The Associated Press.
“US service members were killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol in Syria today,” the US military said in a tweet. It did not give figures for the dead and wounded.
The bombing inflicted the first US fatalities since President Donald Trump announced Dec. 19 that he was pulling American troops out of Syria because “we have won against ISIS.”
