The SDF quickly surrounded Manbij, but the fight to take the city has been tougher, with slow advances inside it in recent weeks.
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Islamic State group militants clashed Saturday with US-backed fighters in Syria’s Manbij as a 48-hour deadline loomed for the militants to leave the battleground town, a monitor said.
The jihadist group did, however, propose a deal to allow the safe passage of critically ill civilians to areas controlled by the U.S.-backed forces in exchange for allowing wounded IS fighters to leave the city, the spokesman said.
Manbij is situated on a key supply route to the IS stronghold of Raqqa, and is therefore seen as a highly-strategic city in the fight against the terror group.
Footage of the three men was published online by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Thursday, which consists of predominantly Kurdish fighters.
IS has “not responded” to the SDF’s offer and had instead “attacked our positions” in the town, he said. The group estimated between 73 and 212 civilian deaths in a strike on Tuesday in Al Tokhar near Manbij.
Thousands of civilians have already fled Manbij, which lies in Syria’s northern Aleppo province.
More than half of Syria’s population has been displaced since the country’s conflict erupted in 2011, and at least 280,000 people have been killed.
An SDF field commander inside Manbij told AFP on Saturday that the main clashes were “near the security quarter in the center of the town”. The opposition Syrian National Coalition had called for airstrikes to be suspended while the incidents were investigated.
Afterwards, the spokesman said, the coalition received both internal and external reports “that there may have been civilians in the area who are mixed in and among the Daesh (IS) fighters”.
Bombing raids have meanwhile continued unabated, with the Pentagon reporting 9 strikes near Manbij on Friday, July 22.
The spokesman said the jihadists had been mounting exceptionally fierce resistance in Manbij, an ISIS bastion. “As far as we’re concerned, the situation has not changed”, adding that there had been no response from IS to the proposal.
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United States officials, however, insist that’s not going to happen, with Army Col. Christopher Garver insisting that the United States airstrikes against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria will continue unchanged despite the reports of huge civilian casualties.
