American service members killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol in Syria

A number of U.S. service members were killed in an explosion while conducting a routine patrol in Syria on Wednesday, the U.S. military said, an attack that came less than a month after U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw troops from the war torn country.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the rare morning attack, which local groups said killed 16 people in the U.S.-patrolled town of Manbij.

The claim, which could not be independently confirmed, calls into question Trump's claim that IS has been defeated in Syria - his stated reason for pulling 2,000 American troops out of the country.


Trump has been clear about his desire to pull out of Syria, a country he described as "sand and death." But critics have said a pullout was premature, that IS was still not defeated and a pullout could lead to a power vacuum that would fuel even more violence.


A security camera showed a busy street, and then a ball of fire and people running for cover as the blast went off.

A local town council and a Syrian war monitoring group said the blast occurred outside a restaurant near the town's main market, near a patrol of the U.S.-led coalition, killing and wounding more than a dozen people.



The rare attack came days after the U.S. began the process of withdrawing from Syria, pulling out equipment from the northeast into neighboring Iraq. Trump's initial announcement about a rapid withdrawal took some of his closest aides by surprise, upset allies in the region, and led to the resignation of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.




