ISIS suicide bombing in Syria kills 19 including American soldiers

Four Americans were among 19 people killed in Syria on Wednesday in a suicide bombing that was claimed by the Islamic State, just weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of US forces and declared that the extremist group had been defeated.

>>Eric Schmitt, Ben Hubbard and Rukmini CallimachiThe New York Times
Published : 17 Jan 2019, 05:50 AM
Updated : 17 Jan 2019, 05:50 AM

The attack targeted a US military convoy in the northern city of Manbij while troops were inside the Palace of the Princes, a restaurant where they often stopped to eat during patrols, residents said. While the Americans were inside, a nearby suicide attacker wearing an explosive vest blew himself up.

The bombing raised new questions about Trump’s surprise decision last month to end the US ground war in Syria. Critics of the president’s plans, including members of his own party, said Trump’s claim of victory over the Islamic State may have emboldened its fighters and encouraged Wednesday’s strike.

It was at least the sixth major attack by the Islamic State in less than a month, according to one US official, and was one of the deadliest days that the American-led coalition had suffered in the fight against the group.

Trump’s withdrawal announcement, made over the objections of his top national security officials, “set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we’re fighting,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, a prominent Trump ally who has nonetheless criticised the military drawdown.

“I saw this in Iraq. And I’m now seeing it in Syria,” Graham said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.

Even as the White House offered condolences over the deaths, Vice President Mike Pence insisted in a statement that the Islamic State had, in fact, been defeated.

“Thanks to the courage of our armed forces, we have crushed the ISIS caliphate and devastated its capabilities,” Pence said. “As we begin to bring our troops home, the American people can be assured, for the sake of our soldiers, their families and our nation, we will never allow the remnants of ISIS to re-establish their evil and murderous caliphate — not now, not ever.”

There are about 2,000 US troops in Syria. Patrick Shanahan, the acting defence secretary, declined to comment when asked if the attack would affect the withdrawal plans.

The American casualties included two service members, a civilian and a military contractor, according to US Central Command. Three other service members were wounded.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll from the explosion at 19 — 10 Syrian civilians and five local fighters in addition to the four Americans.

Surveillance footage posted on social media showed a street with cars double-parked in front of the restaurant and pedestrians on the sidewalk. Then came the blast, consuming the sidewalk in a giant fireball and sending passers-by running for cover.

A statement from the Islamic State, released through its Amaq news agency, said that the suicide attacker detonated his explosive vest to target a patrol of coalition soldiers and local militiamen near the restaurant in Manbij.

The city has been ruled by nearly all sides fighting in the Syrian civil war that broke out in 2011. The United States began deploying troops to fight the Islamic State in Syria in 2015; a year later, a US-backed militia of Kurdish and Arab fighters ousted the extremists from Manbij.

Since then, Manbij has largely been governed and protected by American-backed local councils. While the city is hundreds of miles from any territory held by the Islamic State, it sits next to areas controlled by Turkey and its Syrian rebel allies. US forces maintain a number of bases near Manbij and run frequent patrols.

The bombing on Wednesday puts Trump in a tough position: He has long promised to pull the forces out but also threatened in a tweet on Sunday to hit the Islamic State again, and “hard,” if the group lashed out.

In December, Trump announced he would withdraw American forces from Syria in as little as 30 days. A day later, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis resigned in protest. Before he left the Pentagon, however, Mattis signed the formal order to begin the military drawdown.

But last week, John Bolton, the White House national security adviser, outlined conditions for the withdrawal that could leave American forces in Syria for months or even years. So far, the military has begun withdrawing some equipment — but not troops — from Syria. The overall plan for the withdrawal has yet to be described in detail.

Wednesday’s attack revived the debate on Trump’s strategy.

“I strongly urge the president to forcefully respond and ensure we do not withdraw our troops until ISIS is completely destroyed,” Rep Michael McCaul of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

“The fight against ISIS is clearly not over,” said Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said the bombing “is a stark reminder that the Trump administration needs a clearly developed and articulated strategy to secure the gains we have made in the fight.”

Sen James Inhofe, R-Okla., who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, also urged Trump to reconsider the military withdrawal. However, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who supports the drawdown, met with Trump at the White House to urge him to stay the course.

Paul emerged from the White House saying that he was optimistic Trump was following through on his Syria policy and that “I really believe there will be changes in Afghanistan, as well.”

“I have never been prouder of the president, and I do not say that lightly,” he said during a call with reporters afterward.

Islamic State fighters have also repeatedly struck in and around the eastern Syrian town of Hajin, where an US-backed Kurdish militia has been battling over the last sliver of territory controlled by the extremists.

“All I know is that IS attacks, like, 3,727,638 times a day,” Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, said sarcastically Wednesday, speaking through an interpreter.

The number of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria is estimated at 20,000 to 30,000, according to recent reports by the Pentagon, the United Nations and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank based in Washington.

The extremist group has repeatedly boasted in online messages that the military withdrawal from Syria is evidence that it has outlasted the Americans.

US military officials have warned that there was also a surge in violent attacks in Iraq in 2011 as US troops were withdrawing from that conflict. Wednesday’s bombing in Syria, the officials said, could be viewed as a signal from the Islamic State that, contrary to Trump’s assertions that the caliphate has been destroyed, it remains a threat.

Hassan Hassan, an analyst at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and an author of a book about the Islamic State, said the attack in Manbij showed that the extremists could still strike in the heart of an area that has long been liberated from its control — and has been the recipient of extensive American support.

“The US has focused on the city so much and it still has ISIS cells,” he said. “That should be a warning to everyone, that they should build on what the US has been doing rather than just cut and run, leaving the city exposed to an ISIS recovery.”

Hassan’s research indicates that there are many Islamic State sleeper cells scattered around different parts of Syria and Iraq, as well as in Turkey and elsewhere. He called US involvement and presence the most important factor in the Islamic State’s demise, and said a swift withdrawal of US forces could allow the jihadis to surge back, perhaps reclaiming as much as 50 percent of their former territory.

Other members of Trump’s administration have said US forces should remain in Syria for a number of reasons — including to have leverage in negotiations with President Bashar Assad to end the civil war, to keep Iran from expanding its influence, to protect the United States’ Kurdish allies and to prevent a jihadi resurgence.

Before Wednesday’s bombing, two US troops had been killed in Syria since the first contingent of Special Operation forces entered the country in 2015.

In March, Master Sgt Jonathan J Dunbar, an elite Army commando, was killed by a roadside bomb near Manbij. And in 2016, Senior Chief Petty Officer Scott Cooper Dayton, a bomb disposal technician, was also killed in a roadside blast near the town of Ayn Issa.

© 2019 New York Times News Service