Backed by U.S., Kurd fighters drive ISIS from key Syria city

This image posted online on Wednesday, July. 6, 2016, by supporters of the Islamic State militant group on an anonymous photo sharing website, shows a member of Islamic State militants fires a Grad missile to shell towards Kurdish-led forces in Manbij, in Aleppo province, Syria.
This image posted online on Wednesday, July. 6, 2016, by supporters of the Islamic State militant group on an anonymous photo sharing website, shows a member of Islamic State militants fires a Grad missile to shell towards Kurdish-led forces in Manbij, in Aleppo province, Syria.

BEIRUT -- U.S.-backed fighters have seized a key Islamic State stronghold in northern Syria after two months of heavy fighting and freed hundreds of civilians the militants had used as human shields, Syrian Kurdish officials and an opposition activist group said Saturday.

Manbij was recaptured late Friday. Fighting there had killed more than 1,000 people and displaced thousands.

On the city's streets, men chanted slogans against the Islamic State militants or clipped their beards, and women walked with their faces uncovered for the first time in more than 2½ years, hours after the militants were pushed out of the northern Syrian city.

The capture of Manbij is the biggest defeat for the militant group in Syria since July 2015, when it lost the town of Tal Abyad on the border with Turkey. The capture of Tal Abyad deprived the militant group of a direct route to transport in new foreign militants or supplies.

Manbij is important because it lies on a key supply route between the Turkish border and the city of Raqqa, the declared capital of the Islamic State's self-styled caliphate.

Manbij had been under Islamic State control since January 2014, when the extremists pushed other Syrian militant groups from the town.

The Islamic State's loss of Manbij came two months after it lost the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Nasser Haj Mansour of the predominantly Kurdish Syria Democratic Forces said the town of Manbij "is under full control," adding that operations are ongoing to search for any Islamic State militants who might have stayed behind. The Syria Democratic Forces began its offensive in late May to capture Manbij and was supported by U.S.-led airstrikes.

Amateur videos posted online showed that shortly after Syria Democratic Forces fighters captured the town late Friday, scores of residents celebrated in the streets. The Islamic State imposes an extreme version of Islam on the territory under its control, including a mandatory dress code.

"May God destroy them. They slaughtered us," a young man shouted in a Manbij square. "May they not live for a minute."

The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to Associated Press reporting of events.

In a photo posted online by Kurdish activists, a young woman defiantly uncovered her face while smoking a cigarette and flashing a victory sign.

Under the extremists' rule, women had to wear long black cloaks that covered all but their eyes, while all adult men were forced to grow beards. Smoking was banned.

Haj Mansour said some Islamic State fighters were captured in the town while others fled to nearby villages.

"Military operations will continue until these villages are clean," Haj Mansour said.

Sherfan Darwish, another Syria Democratic Forces official in Manbij, also confirmed that the town is under the full control of his fighters.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said the remaining Islamic State fighters in Manbij left Friday along with hundreds of civilians in some 500 vehicles heading in the direction of the city of Jarablus, on the border of Turkey.

U.S. military drones monitored the militants as they loaded up their vehicles with fighters and civilians and fled.

Kurdish officials did not respond to requests for comment on whether the Islamic State militants were given a safe route to leave Manbij. During the offensive, the Syria Democratic Forces had offered militants a safe route to leave the town but they refused.

The Observatory said that after the capture of Manbij, hundreds of civilians used by the Islamic State as human shields have been freed.

Syria Democratic Forces fighters had been advancing on the town and nearby villages for weeks.

According to the Observatory, the fighting and the airstrikes killed 1,756 people, including 438 civilians, 299 Syria Democratic Forces fighters and 1,019 militants since the Manbij offensive began in late May.

Among those killed was the top Kurdish commander, known as Abu Layla, who died June 5, days after he was wounded during the campaign.

The Islamic State has suffered several defeats over the past months in Syria and Iraq, where the military recaptured the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah in the western Anbar province. However, the Islamic State still controls large parts of Syria as well as Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul.

crisis in Syria's Aleppo

Fighting in Aleppo, Syria, for several days has cut off water for millions of residents as a humanitarian crisis shows signs of spreading from opposition neighborhoods to pro-government districts.

Escalating assaults between government soldiers and rebels for control of the key northern city appear to be turning into a crucial battle in the 5-year-old conflict, which has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced millions.

Although divided since 2012, the western districts held by Syrian President Bashar Assad have not experienced the severe deprivations of areas in the east that rebel forces control. But after an array of rebels and extremists linked to al-Qaida broke the government siege of opposition neighborhoods earlier this month, the rebels escalated the assault to besiege the government side.

That has disrupted supplies of food and medicine to an area where more than 1 million people live.

Germany's foreign minister said it may be necessary for Germany, the U.S., Russia and the United Nations to form an "air bridge" to get supplies to Aleppo's residents.

Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper Saturday of ongoing talks to do so, adding that "if both parts of Aleppo continue not to receive sufficient humanitarian supplies, we should also consider the possibility of assistance by air, especially medical goods."

In response to the escalated assault on Aleppo's west side, rebels and opposition activists say, Assad's forces have responded with intensified bombings that struck hospitals and involved munitions containing chlorine gas, a choking agent.

On Saturday, a semiofficial news agency in Iran reported that the families of at least 400 people killed fighting in Iranian brigades in Syria were referred to the Martyr Foundation, which offers financial support to the relatives of those killed fighting for Iran.

Iranian forces have been providing support to Assad in the civil war.

The Saturday report quotes the head of the Martyr Foundation, Mohammad Ali Shahidi, as saying that Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard gave the number of fighters killed, saying that about half of them were Afghan.

Information for this article was contributed by Bassem Mroue and staff members of The Associated Press; by Louisa Loveluck, Hugh Naylor and Zakaria Zakaria of The Washington Post; and by Rod Nordland, Maher Samaan and Eric Schmitt of The New York Times.

A Section on 08/14/2016

Upcoming Events