Kurdish-US convoy hit by another attack in Syria as withdrawal tensions rise

A suicide car bomb attack on a military convoy in Syria's Hasakah province on Monday killed five members of a Kurdish-led force accompanying US-led coalition troops, a war monitor reported. The car bomb killed five fighters from the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and occurred near the town of Shaddadi, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was cited as saying by Xinhua news agency.

The attack was the second of its kind to target US forces in northern Syria. On January 16, four US soldiers were reportedly killed in a blast targeting a military convoy in the Kurdish-controlled Manbij city in northern Syria. At the time, sleeper cells of the Islamic State (IS) were said to be behind the blast. The US has a military presence in Syria, mainly in Kurdish-controlled areas in northern and northeastern Syria.

The US-led coalition is engaged in an operation to drive out the IS militants from their last stronghold in the eastern Euphrates region in Syria. The strikes follow US President Donald Trump's announcement in December about withdrawing American forces from Syria.