Blast hurts US troops, kills passersby in Syrian Manbij

A restaurant in northern Syria’s Manbij town center was rocked by an explosion Wednesday, killing at least 16 people and injuring many others, a Syrian war monitoring group said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blast occurred near a patrol of the U.S.-led coalition.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed and three others wounded in the blast, a U.S. official told Reuters.
One PKK-linked People’s Protection Forces (YPG) terrorists was also killed in the explosion, the Observatory said.
The monitor said the blast was likely set off by a suicide bomber.
Daesh terrorist group later claimed responsibility for the attack that hit U.S.-led forces.
“A suicide attack carried out with explosives vest hit an international coalition patrol in the city of Manbij,” the terror group’s propaganda arm Amaq said.
The attack comes as the U.S. has begun the process of withdrawing from Syria.
The town and its surrounding area has been controlled by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the YPG terrorist group, since Aug. 2016 after ousting Deash terrorists who captured the town from moderate opposition in Jan. 2014.
Manbij is one of the two areas controlled by the SDF/YPG on the right bank of the Euphrates River, with the other being the area including the town of Tabqah in central Syria.
Turkey strongly opposes YPG’s presence in Manbij and reached a deal with the U.S. in June to end the terrorist group’s presence in the town and conduct joint patrols.