BAGHOUZ, Syria (AP) — A spokesman for U.S.-backed forces fighting the Islamic State group in Syria says they have captured a group of suspects involved in a January bombing that killed four Americans in a town in northern Syria.
Mustafa Bali says the suspects were captured following technical surveillance by the group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. He did not elaborate on the number of suspects or when they were captured.
The Americans were killed in a suicide bombing in January in the town of Manbij that was claimed by IS.
In a statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday, he said the outcome of the ongoing investigation will be shared at a later time.
Bali’s statement came few hours after the SDF said it had captured an IS encampment in the eastern village of Baghouz after IS militants surrendered.
Mustafa Bali, of the Kurdish-led force known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, says clashes however are continuing elsewhere in the village in eastern Syria as IS militants continue to fight back.
Bali says on Twitter on Tuesday that controlling the encampment in Baghouz marks “significant progress” in the fight but that it’s “not a victory announcement.”
The area held by IS in Baghouz is the last pocket of territory in Syria controlled by the extremist group, which once held a vast area of Syria and Iraq, calling it an Islamic “caliphate.”
