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Soldier killed in Syria identified as 36-year-old from Texas

Members of the Kurdish internal security forces, right, pass damaged shops at the scene where an explosion on Thursday hit U.S.-led coalition vehicles, killing an American and a British soldier, in Manbij town, north Syria, Saturday, March 31, 2018. (Hussein Malla / Associated Press)
By Deb Riechmann Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The American service member killed this week by a roadside bomb in northern Syria was a 36-year-old Army soldier from Texas.

The Defense Department identified him Saturday as Master Sgt. Johnathan J. Dunbar of Austin.

He died Friday as a result of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his patrol in Syria, not far from the border with Turkey.

A Briton also was killed and five other people were wounded in Thursday’s bombing.

Dunbar was assigned to the headquarters of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

He is the fourth American service member to die in Syria since the U.S. began attacking Islamic State group militants there in September 2014.