Syrians battling ISIS fighters in Manbij now have control of about half of the city, a spokesman for the anti-ISIS coalition said Friday.Colonel Chris Garver, the spokesman for the USA -led coalition, told reporters Friday via teleconference from Baghdad that US -backed Syrian Arab Coalition fighters have control of the western half of Manbij and continue to tighten their circle around the city.
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The attempted escape came after the Manbij Military Council (MMC) – part of the SDF – gave IS fighters 48 hours to leave the strategic town with their “individual weapons” on Thursday, saying that was their last chance to leave alive.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance – made up of Arab and Kurdish fighters and backed by the United States – made rapid advances against IS last month after launching an aggressive campaign to flush them out of the area along the strategically important Turkish border area, which militants had used for years to traffic weapons and fighters. Thousands of civilians had already fled Manbij. Human rights group Amnesty International has also called for clarification about civilian casualties in airstrikes suspected to have been carried out by the US-led coalition.
The coalition has said it is investigating the reports of civilian fatalities in the town of Al-Tukhar, 14-km from Manbij.
Coalition spokesman Colonel Chris Garver said Friday that IS was mounting an exceptionally tough fightback. “[It’s] sort of different than what we saw in Ramadi and what we saw in Fallujah”, he said, referring to two Iraqi cities where IS fighters retreated earlier this year.
Darwish did not say whether the SDF would accept the IS proposal on wounded fighters and sick civilians. He estimated that the SDF had taken back roughly half the town, an area still housing at least 2,000 civilians.
Most IS fighters ignored the warning, remaining in the city and using civilians as human shields.
But the Britain-based Observatory says that 594 civilians have been killed in coalition raids across Syria – more than 100 in Manbij alone.
Repeated attempts by Washington and steadfast regime ally Moscow to reinforce a nationwide ceasefire have largely failed, with violence continuing.
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Air raids killed seven family members, including four children, in the central Hama province, and another eight people including three children east of Damascus, it said.
