Daesh fighters have used the northern Syrian city of Manbij as a base to hatch plots against Europe, Turkey and the United States, necessitating a U.S. -backed offensive against it, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Thursday.
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On Wednesday, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the United States, launched an offensive to force the Daesh terrorist group, outlawed in many countries worldwide including Russian Federation, out of the Syrian city of Manbij in the north of the country.
Turkey does not want to see the YPG, which already controls much of the Turkish-Syrian border, take over the last bit of the frontier that it did not already hold.
“It’s significant in that it’s their last remaining funnel” to Europe, a US military official told Reuters.
“The operation is aimed at isolating Islamic State in northern Syria”, Idriss Nassan, a senior Kurdish official, told German news agency dpa.
US officials told Reuters thousands of fighters, supported by a small number of USA special forces, were launching an offensive to capture the crucial swathe of northern Syria that militants have long used as a logistics base.
Still, the impetus for some residents to flee was fear of Kurdish forces, who have been accused by residents and rights groups of displacing ethnic Arabs and Turkmen following battles in other parts of Syria, Mr. Alhussen said.
The operation is taking place ahead of an eventual push by the USA -backed Syrian forces toward Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto Syrian capital, which, alongside Iraq’s northern city of Mosul is one of two main objectives to bring down the caliphate. “We call on them to take measures to ensure their safety”, he said. “Turkey was informed by the United States about the operation, but any contribution is out of the question”, the source said. A separate offensive against that city was launched last week.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member Turkey is a member of the US-led coalition fighting ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
Kurds represent less than 20% of the forces on the ground, a USA official said. U.S. President Barack Obama has authorized about 300 U.S. special operations forces to operate on the ground inside Syria to help coordinate with local forces.
The attack is backed by US -led air strikes and USA special forces on the ground.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011.
Turkey claims the PYD is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and wants its US ally to cease cooperating with it, but Washington has not signaled that it will end cooperation with the group in the fight against ISIL.
Fighting in Falluja risks the army becoming bogged down in territory inhabited by Sunni tribes long hostile to the Shi’ite-led government. It added that a further 10 civilians were killed by coalition raids on the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa city.
An earlier, partial cease-fire this year excluded al-Qaida’s Syria affiliate and its extremist rival the Islamic State group.
Falluja is Islamic State’s second-largest bastion in Iraq and closest outpost to Baghdad.
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The offensive in northern Syria comes as the Iraqi military and Shiite militias’ advance into the IS-held city of Iraq was stalled by fierce resistance from the militant group and concerns over protecting tens of thousands of civilians still trapped inside the city.
