The BBC reported that US officials claim that after the capture of Manjib, the coalition’s intention is to move on to Raqqa, which had become the de facto capital of the Islamic “caliphate” two years ago. US officials say the coalition’s next target is ISIS’ de facto capital of Raqqa.
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The women ripped off their black burqas and smoked cigarettes, while men cut their beards and flashed the peace sign, according to The Telegraph.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the USA, announced they had liberated the city and freed over 2,000 hostages ISIS was using as human shields.
The city’s civilians took to the streets in celebration.
The capture of Manbij from IS represents the worst defeat for the extremist group in Syria since July 2015, when it lost the town of Tal Abyad on the border with Turkey.
Manbij is expected to facilitate an advance on IS’s de-facto Syrian capital of Raqqa, which lies 80 miles away. We will go after them no matter where they are heading to, ” said one of the female soldiers with the YPJ, which contributed greatly to the liberation of the city, to Reuters.
Mr Haj Mansour said some ISIL fighters were captured in the town while others fled to nearby villages. Syrian Kurdish officials and an activist group say USA -backed fighters have seized a key Islamic State stronghold in northern Syria after two months of heavy fighting and freed hundreds of civilians the extremists had used as human shields.
When withdrawing from an area of Manbij, Daesh, Islamic jihadists kidnapped around 2,000 civilians from the neighborhood of Al-Sirb, Sharfan Darwish of the SDF allied Manbij Military Council said on Friday. Darwish also added that women and children were among the abducted, and that they used the captured as human shields while withdrawing towards Jarabulus. During the offensive, the SDF had offered fighters a safe route to leave the town but they refused.
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Britain-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that several hundred of the civilians taken from Manbij were no longer being held. Mass kidnappings, using civilians as human shields, booby trapping cars, and suicide bombings are common ways for ISIS to slow down the advancement of their opponents. However, ISIL still controls large parts of Syria as well as Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul.
