When 72-year-old President Donald Trump announced Dec. 19, 2018 a withdrawal of 2,000 U.S. advisers from Syria, members of Congress and the Pentagon threw a fit. Trump said he was bringing American troops home because the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] was defeated. Today’s suicide bombing at a Manbij, Syria restaurants serves notice that ISIS may be embers but not yet in ashes. Two service members and two civilians were killed in the suicide blast, proving, if nothing else, that ISIS can still lash out at Americans. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, pleaded with the president not to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, despite pledging to do so to 64-year-old Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan spoke with Trump Dec. 19, 2018 by phone before deciding to pull U.S. forces out Syria, reassuring him on the ongoing ISIS battle.
Today’s suicide blast in Manjib almost certainly postpones a U.S. withdrawal indefinitely, while U.S. forces plan to retaliate against what’s left of ISIS in Syria. ”The President has been fully briefed and we will continue to monitor the ongoing situation in Syria,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Sanders mentioned nothing about al-Shabaab’s brutal attack in Nairobi, Kenya killing at least 21, where Somali ISIS-affiliated al-Shabaab militants detonated car bombs, suicide bomber and opened fire on civilians in a luxury hotel. While al-Shabaab terrorists are a different breed from ISIS in Syria, they’re unified by ISIS’s radical jihadist philosophy. “My concern by the statements made by President Trump is that you have set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy we are fighting,” said Graham, urging the president in the strongest possible terms to cancel the Syrian withdrawal.
Whether or not Trump’s Dec. 20, 2018 announcement had anything to do with today’s ISIS suicide attack is anyone’s guess. You’d think that if ISIS wanted the U.S. to withdraw from Syria, they wouldn’t murder U.S. citizens. “Think what you want to about those people over there—they have had enough killing. They would love to have the opportunity that we have to fix problems without the force of violence. So I would hope the president would look long and hard of where he is headed in Syria,” Graham said. Today’s suicide blast proves that ISIS is alive-and-well in Syria, just not holding major territory when they controlled Raqqa, Syria and Mosul, Iraq. It doesn’t take much to massacre civilians with suicide bombing or, like al-Shabaab’s attack in Nairobi, a coordinated attack with car bombs, suicide bombers and machine guns. ISIS can still wreak a lot of damage.
Trump’s already reconsidered his Dec. 20, 2018 decision to withdraw 2,000 U.S. advisers. After today’s suicide blast, the U.S. military will redouble efforts to lash out at ISIS it its safe havens in the North Syrian desert. Today’s death toll in Syria for U.S. citizens adds to the four members of the U.S. military killed in 2015. Trump wanted to withdraw from Syria to spare military families more casualties. “I get very saddened when I have to write letters or call parents or wives or husbands of soldiers who have been killed fighting for our country. It’s a great honor. We cherish them but it’s heartbreaking,” Trump said, giving his rationale for ending the U.S. Syrian deployment. Whether the president likes it or not, the Mideast is a deadly place, something former President George W. Bush found out when he invaded Iraq March 23, 2003, claiming victory to months later.
Erdogan tried to reassure Trump on Turkey’s commitment to go after ISIS when the U.S. pulled out. Now that Trump sees firsthand the ISIS is alive-and-well, not completely defeated, he has no choice but to postpone the withdrawal for the purpose of keeping U.S. enemies at bay. Once Erdogan threatened the Kurd’s YPG militia, the U.S. could no longer pull out of Syria, without jeopardizing the U.S.-ISIS fighting force. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave Trump another good reason to delay any Syrian pullout. He told Trump that U.S. troops deter Iran from establishing permanent bases in Syria. Today’s ISIS attack gives Trump all the justification needed to delay indefinitely the U.S. withdrawal from Syria. U.S. military and civilians personnel will think twice before going to any public establishment in Syria. ISIS is lurking around every corner, waiting for their chance.
Today’s ISIS attack in Manjib killing four Americans speaks volumes about how the terror group still has lethal capability in Iraq and Syria. More terror attacks by ISIS affiliate al-Shabaab in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 21, injuring scores more, shows that ISIS still has global reach to wreak havoc around the globe. With about 2,000 ISIS terrorists left in Syria, there’s no reason to think they’re not capable of deadly force. ISIS still is still a “determined force who employed complex attacks, improvised explosive devices and bobby-trapped building,” said the U.S. military. Driving ISIS out of Raqqa and Mosul was a good first step but doesn’t stop the terror group from launching terrorist attacks at soft targets in the Mideast and Europe. Today’s ISIS attacks in Manbij, Syria will no doubt spur more U.S. bombing of ISIS targets in Syria, Iraq and around the globe.
