TAPPER: Our world lead now. Four Americans, including two U.S. service members were killed in a deadly suicide attack in Syria today. I want to warn you, the video of the blast that we're going to show you is graphic. ISIS has claimed responsibility but at this point has provided no proof of responsibility. Bizarrely hours after this horrific attack, Vice President Pence declared that the ISIS caliphate had, quote, crumbled and that ISIS had been, quote, defeated. The vice president, of course, was following the script of President Trump on December 19th declared all American troops would immediately withdraw from Syria because ISIS had been defeated, a claim rebuffed and rebutted at the time by both the State Department and the Pentagon. After that presidential pronouncement, during a Christmas visit to Iraq, U.S. commanders told President Trump that ISIS had not been entirely destroyed and apparently was an eye-opening revelation for the president, according to sources. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham today directly tied the president's inaccurate "mission accomplished" declaration to today's bombing.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: My concern by the statements made the President Trump is that you set in motion enthusiasm by the enemy were fighting you make people were trying to help wonder about us. I saw this in Iraq and I'm now seeing it in Syria.</s>TAPPER: CNN's Barbara Starr picks up the story now from the Pentagon.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Without warning, a massive suicide blast on the busy streets of Manbij in northern Syria, killing and wounding U.S. troops and civilians, people suddenly thrown to the ground.
ISIS Claims Responsibility for Bombing Killing U.S. Troops