Kurdish, Arab fighters engage ISIL inside Syria’s Manbij
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Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) gather on June 10, 2016 on the outskirts of the northern Syrian town of Manbij held by ISIL.
An alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces has reportedly managed to enter Manbij in Syria’s Aleppo Province weeks after encircling the ISIL-held city.
According to the reports, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) pushed into Manbij, located some 30 kilometers west of the Euphrates, hours after they seized control of a village southwest of the city, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Thursday.
According to the Observatory, fierce street battles were still going on in the streets of Manbij.
It said at least two SDF fighters were killed when a bomb was detonated inside a building. There were no immediate reports about causalities among the ranks of ISIL.
Sources said Thursday that ISIL had planted many booby-traps to stop the advance of the SDF.
This is the second time in less than a month that SDF attempts to capture Manbij, a town of 120,000 people before the conflict started in Syria more than five years ago. The area fell to Takfiri terrorists in 2014.
The Kurdish-Arab fighters encircled the city earlier in this month but faced heavy resistance by ISIL.
Manbij is situated some 40 kilometers from the Turkish border. The SDF forces have so far liberated dozens of villages and farms in the area since the start of their anti-ISIL assault on May 31.
SS
