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Experts warn of persistent ISIS threat after suicide bombing | TheHill

posted onJanuary 21, 2019
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Article snippet: The suicide bombing in Syria this past week at a restaurant said to be popular among U.S. service members put into focus the persistent threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), experts said. The town in northern Syria where the bombing took place was considered a success story for stabilization after it was retaken from ISIS in 2016. As recently as July, U.S. senators toured the area without body armor. But Wednesday's blast in Manbij’s bustling city center shattered that perception at a time when MORE has been touting the decimation of ISIS and plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. “I don’t think anybody who knows anything about Syria thinks that ISIS is annihilated,” said Stephen Biddle, an adjunct senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. “And if they’re not annihilated, then they’re going to be able to pull off occasional attacks and kill people, including Americans.” Four Americans — two U.S. service members, a civilian employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency and an American military contractor — were killed in the suicide bombing. ISIS took credit for the attack, which was the single-deadliest for Americans in Syria since U.S. troops were deployed in 2015. The attack came roughly a month after Trump announced he would withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. At the time of the announcement, Trump said ISIS had been “defeated.” Lawmakers who oppose withdrawal have seized on the recent attack to renew their... Link to the full article to read more

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