Hours After US Troops Killed In Syria, Pence Says IS Has Been Defeated

Wednesday's bomb attack took place in the Syrian town of Manbij (Picture: US Army).

US Vice President Mike Pence said the Islamic State group has been defeated in Syria, hours after four Americans were killed in a bomb attack in Syria claimed by the militants.

Two US service personnel, a US Department of Defence civilian employee and a contractor working for the military were killed in the blast in the northern Syrian town of Manbij.

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

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 16 people were killed, including nine civilians, and others were wounded in the blast.

It added that at least five US-backed Syrian fighters were also among the dead.

Mike Pence didn't mention the attack when he addressed chiefs of the US diplomatic missions who'd gathered in Washington for their annual meeting to discuss foreign policy strategy. Mr Pence said:

"The caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated."

The Vice President went on to say that the US will stay in the fight in Syria to make sure the Islamic State group can't stage a comeback in the country.

However, he did stress that Donald Trump's plans to pull American troops out of Syria remain in place.

"Thanks to the leadership of this commander in chief and the courage and sacrifice of our armed forces, we're now actually able to begin to hand off the fight against ISIS in Syria to our coalition partners and we're bringing our troops home."

However, he did say that the US would stay in the region:

"We'll stay in the fight to ensure that ISIS does not rear its ugly head again. We will protect the gains that our soldiers and our coalition partners have secured."

In separate statements later, both the White House and Pence condemned the Syria bomb attack and expressed sympathy for the deaths of the US personnel.

President Trump made a surprise announcement in December 2018 that he would withdraw 2,000 US troops from Syria after announcing that Islamic State had been defeated there.

The announcement upset allies in the region, and led to the resignation of secretary of defence Jim Mattis.

Since then, US officials and Mr Trump himself have suggested the withdrawal would be slower than initially thought.