American among two members of U.S.-led coalition killed in Syria attack

Jim Michaels | USA TODAY

An American and a British servicemen were killed by a roadside bomb attack in Syria, U.S. and British officials said Friday. Five coalition personnel were wounded in the attack.

A U.S. military statement said the attack occurred Thursday but did not specify a location or the nationalities of the servicemen killed in the attack.

The United Kingdom's Defense Ministry said a British soldier was killed in an attack in Syria. A U.S. defense official said the other serviceman killed in the attack was American, the Associated Press reported.

It was the second U.S. combat death in Syria. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Scott C. Dayton, was killed by an improved explosive device in November 2016.

The coalition troops are supporting local forces battling the Islamic State, which is also called ISIS, in northern Syria.

Military officials have not released details of the attack, though Islamic State militants commonly lay booby-traps and roadside bombs in areas they previously controlled.

The deaths came as President Trump said the United States would be withdrawing from Syria soon.

"We’re knocking the hell out of ISIS," Trump said. "We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take of it now."

Trump might have been referring to a change in support because coalition-backed local forces have been successful in driving the Islamic State from most of Syria.

The Pentagon has said that as military operations against the Islamic State wind down the U.S. commitment would shift to support "stabilization" efforts, which generally refers to diplomats and reconstruction support.

Much of the security needed for that could be supplied by local forces, though U.S. officials have also said they would continue to support those efforts.

The names of the troops have not been released yet, pending notification of family members, the U.S. military said Friday. The attack occurred Thursday.

The military did not say where Thursday's attack occurred but it came hours after a local Syrian official said that a roadside bomb had exploded in the tense, mixed Arab-Kurdish town of Manbij that is not far from the border with Turkey, the AP reported.

The local Syrian official, Mohammed Abu Adel, the head of the Manbij Military Council, an Arab-Kurdish US.-backed group in the town, said the bomb went off hundreds of meters away from a security headquarters that houses the council just before midnight on Thursday, according to the AP.

The latest attack on coalition forces comes as the battlefield in northern Syria has grown more complex.

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces had been battling Islamic State militants, driving them from their strongholds in northern Syria.

But Turkey has viewed the Kurdish forces who make up much of the SDF as a threat and have been battling them inside Syria.

Manbij is one of the areas under threat of a Turkish military operation and it has been gripped by violence recently.

Contributing: The Associated Press