Two US-led coalition personnel killed in Syria

Two members of the US-led coalition against the ISIS group were killed in the northern Syrian city of Manbij, the US military and a monitor said on Friday.

The attack in Manbij, a city where US personnel is stationed, was carried out late Thursday, the day US President Donald Trump said he would pull out forces “very soon”.

“Two Coalition personnel were killed and five were wounded by an improvised explosive device in Syria” at around midnight (2100 GMT), the US-led coalition said in a statement.

It did not provide the nationalities of the pair nor did any group immediately claim responsibility for the attack.

The US-led coalition said it was withholding details on the circumstances of the attack pending further investigation.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor which relies on a nationwide network of sources on the ground, said the attack hit a convoy in Manbij.

The monitor said four members of the local council were also wounded in the explosion, which struck in the heart of the city.

Manbij used to be a key hub for the militants when their self-styled “caliphate” was at its peak. It was retaken by Kurdish-led forces backed by the coalition.

It is located between the northern city of Aleppo and the western bank of the Euphrates, less than 30 kilometers (south of the border with Turkey.

Manbij lies where several international influence zones meet and risks becoming a new flashpoint in the post-IS scramble for Syria.

“We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” Trump told industrial workers in Ohio on Thursday.