ANKARA, Turkey — Russia and the Islamic State made separate claims of sorts to northern Syria today.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that after US troops withdraw, the territory should revert to the control of the Syrian government. And hours after Lavrov spoke, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the north-central Syrian town of Manbij, killing 16 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The bomber belonged to the Islamic State (IS, or ISIS), the group said in a statement quoted by The Associated Press.