Beirut: Daesh appeared to have shunned an offer to its fighters to withdraw safely from the Syrian city of Manbij and clashes with US-backed forces raged ahead of its expiry, a spokesman for Washington-backed forces said on Saturday.
The Syria Democratic Forces alliance, made up of Arab and Kurdish fighters and backed by the United States, made rapid advances against the terrorists last month after launching a campaign to flush them out of territory along the Turkish border, through which they had for years moved weapons and fighters.
The SDF quickly surrounded Manbij, but the fight to take the city has been tougher, with slow advances inside it in recent weeks.
The terrorists are accused of using civilians as human shields in Manbij, located in the northern province of Aleppo on Daesh’s main supply route between Syria and Turkey.
On Thursday, the SDF-allied Manbij Military Council said Daesh terrorists would be allowed to leave the city with light weapons, without a fight, if their departure took place within 48 hours.
The offer had been initiated by local actors, the Council’s spokesman Sharfan Darwish said, without elaborating.
“The deadline is approaching, time is almost up ... and the battles are continuing. As far as we’re concerned, the situation has not changed,” he said on Saturday, adding that there had been no apparent response from Daesh to the initiative.
“Our steps towards liberating Manbij are going ahead.”
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes continued inside Manbij, and that the US-led coalition fighting Daesh was bombing parts of the city and areas nearby.
The ultimatum came after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitor, said that at least 56 civilians, including children, were killed on Tuesday in coalition air strikes near Manbij.
Coalition spokesman Colonel Chris Garver said on Friday that Daesh had “used civilians as human shields and as bait” in order to draw the fire of the SDF towards civilians.
Observatory chief Rami Abdul Rahman said there were sporadic clashes inside Manbij and raids by the US-led coalition on the town as the deadline approached for Daesh to leave.
“Daesh is fiercely resisting attempts by the SDF forces to advance inside the city and is pushing children towards the front lines in spite of the deadline,” he said.
The coalition spokesman said that the terrorists were mounting an exceptionally tough fightback in Manbij.
Fighting has grown more intense as SDF units move into the city, he said, “which is sort of different than what we saw in Ramadi and what we saw in Fallujah,” two Iraqi cities from which jihadists were ousted this year.
“It’s a fight like we haven’t seen before,” said Garver.
He estimated that the SDF had taken back roughly half the city, an area still housing at least 2,000 civilians.
Garver said he could not confirm that the SDF had issued an ultimatum to Daesh fighters to leave Manbij.
He said that Tuesday’s air raid was called after the SDF “observed a large group of Daesh (Daesh) fighters in a convoy who appeared to be readying for a counterattack”.
“The strike was against both buildings and vehicles,” said Garver.
Afterwards, the spokesman said, the coalition received both internal and external reports “that there may have been civilians in the area who are mixed in and among the Daesh (Daesh) fighters.”
The US-led coalition has opened an investigation into the reports of civilian deaths, which have sparked condemnation including from Syrian activists and opposition groups.