Far from defeat

A bomb attack claimed by Daesh killed US troops in northern Syria yesterday, weeks after President Donald Trump said the group was defeated there and he would pull out all American forces.

A US official who declined to be named said four US troops had been killed and three wounded in the blast, which a Daesh-affiliated site said was the work of a suicide bomber. Others said only two had been killed.

The US-led coalition fighting Daesh said that “US service members were killed during an explosion while conducting a routine patrol”, and that it was still gathering details.

Unusually, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave his own death toll for the attack, saying it had killed 20 people, including five US troops. Erdogan said he did not believe the attack would impact Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria.

The attack, which took place in the town of Manbij, controlled by rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, appears to be the deadliest on US forces in Syria since they deployed there in 2015.