15 killed in Syria suicide attack claimed by IS
The bombing came as Kurds who control a large swathe of northern Syria rejected a Turkish plan to set up a ‘security zone’ on the Syrian side of the border
QAMISHLI(Syria): A suicide attack claimed by the IS group killed 15 people including a US serviceman on Wednesday in the northern Syrian city of Manbij near the Turkish border, a monitor said.
Nine civilians and five USbacked fighters were among the dead in the attack on a restaurant in the flashpoint city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Rubble littered the outside of the eatery in the city centre, footage from a Kurdish news agency showed, and its facade was blackened by the blast.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, said it was the first such suicide attack in the city against the US-led coalition fighting IS in 10 months.
The bombing came as Kurds who control a large swathe of northern Syria rejected a Turkish plan to set up a “security zone” on the Syrian side of the border. Almost eight years into Syria’s civil war, Turkey has repeatedly threatened to attack Syrian Kurdish fighters it views as “terrorists” on its southern flank.
Washington, which has relied heavily on the Kurds in its campaign against IS in Syria, has sought guarantees for their safety after President Donald Trump suddenly announced a US troop pullout last month.
On Tuesday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara would set up a “security zone” in northern Syria following a suggestion by Trump.
The planned buffer would embrace a large swathe of the autonomous region the Kurds have established in northern and northeastern Syria.
Senior Kurdish political leader Aldar Khalil said any Turkish deployment in Kurdish-held areas was “unacceptable”. He said the Kurds would accept the deployment of UN forces along a separation line between Kurdish fighters and Turkish troops to ward off the threatened offensive.
But “other choices are unacceptable as they infringe on the sovereignty of Syria and the sovereignty of our autonomous region,” Khalil said. Ankara has welcomed Washington’s planned withdrawal of some 2,000 US troops from Syria but the future of US-backed Kurdish fighters has poisoned relations between the NATO allies.
On Monday, Erdogan had a telephone conversation with Trump to ease tensions after the US leader threatened to “devastate” the Turkish economy if Ankara attacks Kurdish forces in Syria, and called for a “safe zone”.
The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have been the key US ally in the fight against IS.
They have taken heavy losses in a campaign now nearing its conclusion, with the extremists confined to an ever-shrinking enclave of just 15 square kilometres (under six square miles).
The shock announcement of a US withdrawal has sent the Kurds scrambling to seek a new ally in Damascus, which has long rejected Kurdish self-rule. With military backing from Russia since 2015, President Bashar Al Assad’s government has made huge gains against the extremists and rebels, and now controls almost twothirds of the country.
A northwestern enclave held by extremists and pockets held by Turkish troops and their allies remain beyond its reach, along with the much larger Kurdish region.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Syrian government must take control of the north. “The best and only solution is the transfer of these territories under the control of the Syrian government, and of Syrian security forces and administrative structures,” Lavrov said. The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, another key ally of the Damascus regime, said it would not withdraw any forces from Syria, dismissing Israel threats.
Full story @ timesofoman.com/xxxxxx