US-backed Syrian forces said on Sunday they have established a military council to push Islamic State group fighters out of their northern bastion of Al-Bab after ousting the Jihadists from Manbij.
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The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia.
The chief of the United States mission to fight the Islamic State, Brett McGurk, confirmed on Twitter that the city center had been liberated, adding that terror group was losing ground in its Libyan stronghold of Sirte.
“We’re inside Manbij after its liberation from IS. and taking civilians to secure places”, Nayruz Serekaniye said.
Despite intensive USA bombing of bridges, several hospitals and a large silo in the course of the campaign, the city appears to have been spared the devastation of other cities in the Syrian conflict.
The SDF launched an assault in May on Manbij, on a key jihadist supply route between the Turkish border and IS’s de facto Syrian capital Raqa.
Residents of the Syrian city of Manbij were celebrating today after rebel fighters freed about 2,000 hostages and drove out the last ISIS fighters, who had reportedly been using civilians as human shields.
Thousands of displaced residents streamed back into the northern Syrian town of Manbij on Saturday after USA -backed fighters ousted the last Islamic State (IS) militants from their former stronghold, residents and US allies said. Dozens of women in black niqabs – the full-body coverings which are similar to burqas but leave the eyes exposed – were photographed being freed by the armed rebels, many of them carrying babies, overwhelmed and in tears.
In Iraq, Islamic State lost Fallujah in June and Ramadi a few months earlier.
Other images show men cutting off their beards, something that was strictly forbidden during ISIS rule, while other scenes of jubilation were captured across town.
Colonel Chris Garver, a spokesperson for the US-led coalition, hailed the capture of Manbij as a “strategic loss” for the so-called Islamic State.
The SDF captured Manbij last week, freeing thousands of captive civilians, but were battling the last remaining IS fighters holed up in the city in the days that followed.
Locals report that nearly immediately after “liberating” Manbij, Kurdish forces set fire to the civil registry and land registry buildings in the city, destroying records of who owns what property around the city.
The operation to retake Mosul that started yesterday is part of the preparations for an offensive on the city itself, said a Kurdish official who declined to be identified.
“There are a lot of foreign fighters there and they haven’t cut and run, at least not many of them”, MacFarland said in describing last week’s fighting in Manbij. “They’re fighting pretty hard in that city”.
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“It is now time for the good news, news that terrorism has been taken out of Manbij city”.
