‘PKK orchestrated Manbij blast to sabotage US pullout, safe zone in NE Syria’

A deadly blast that claimed four American lives in Syria’s Manbij on Wednesday could not have been carried out without the knowledge and approval of terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), according to a Syrian opposition official.

Speaking exclusively to Yeni Şafak daily, Manbij National Forum Spokesman Jawdat Jayran accused the PKK terror group of destroying all evidence following Wednesday’s blast after it cordoned the area.

Jayran said Assad’s Mukhabrat, acting in coordination with the PKK following their rapprochement, could be behind the blast in order to sabotage the safe zone agreement and derail the planned American pullout.

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he had discussed a safe zone which Turkey would set up inside Syria along the length of their border, during a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump which he described as positive.

Trump, who announced he was pulling U.S. troops out of northeast Syria last month, suggested in a tweet on Sunday creating safe zone.

Jayran noted that such tactics, which involves blaming Daesh for sabotage attacks, have been employed in the past.

Manbij, which has been under PKK occupation for three years, is tightly controlled by the terror group.

“Anyone who enters the city has to be registered by the PKK’s so-called intelligence and police force. The city’s population has actually been exiled,” pointed Jayran.

“Such an attack at such a central part of the city cannot be carried out without the knowledge and approval of the terror group.”

Over the past week, the U.S. has withdrawn nine trucks and 45 soldiers from its Shalabiyyeh and Ayn Issa bases Manbij.

The U.S. military confirmed that four Americans were killed and said three U.S. troops were wounded in the explosion in northern Syria, which a Daesh-affiliated site said was the work of a suicide bomber.

The attack in Manbij appeared to be the deadliest on U.S. forces in Syria since they deployed on the ground there in 2015. The town is controlled by a militia allied to U.S.-backed PKK/PYD terrorists.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said 19 people had been killed in total.

Syria's civil war has killed half a million people, forced more than half the country's pre-war population from their homes and dragged in global and regional powers.