Backed Syrian force gives Islamic State 48 hours to leave Manbij

“The destruction of [terrorist] targets in Syria and Iraq further limits the group’s ability to project terror and conduct operations”, military officials said in a news release.

The civilian deaths occurred in connection with the battle for Manbij – a Syrian city located near the border of Turkey.

On Thursday, the Manbij Military Council part of the SDF said IS fighters had 48 hours to leave the town with their “individual weapons”, saying this was their last opportunity to leave alive.

The US-led coalition has been backing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces, to capture Manbij since last May.

There’s a really devastating reason why you’ve been seeing people post the hashtag #PrayforSyria to their feeds all day: Reports are emerging now that airstrikes this week from the United States and other Western nations targeting ISIS-held territories have actually killed dozens of civilians in the war-torn country.

The statement also urged civilians to try to leave Manbij or distance themselves from areas where clashes are taking place.

Mr Al Abdah said 125 civilians had been killed in US-led strikes around Manbij, characterising the strikes as crimes.

The US has confirmed the deaths of just 41 civilians in coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria since the anti-ISIL air campaign began in September 2014.

“We believe that such incidents indicate a major loophole in the current operational rules followed by the global coalition in conducting strikes in populated areas”, al-Abdah said in the letter.

French President Francois Hollande claimed he had no precise information on the French air forces’ responsibility for the civilian deaths.

“UNICEF estimates that 35,000 children are trapped in and around Manbij with nowhere safe to go”, the agency’s representative in Syria, Hanaa Singer, said.

Organizations like Amnesty International have said American airstrikes killed more than 100 civilians in the city since June, CNN reports.

This “gives us valuable insight into stopping the flow of foreign fighters into the region”, coalition spokesman US Army Col Christopher Garver told reporters. Activist groups and witnesses in the area, though, said dozens of civilians were also killed in the coalition strikes.

The fighting is forcing many civilians to flee, and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 200 civilians fled the town of Manbij in the morning.

The observatory said the strikes appeared to have been carried out in error, with civilians mistaken for Islamist militants.

Opposition-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo have been effectively under siege for the past two weeks, after government forces severed the only remaining supply route into the east of the city.

In Geneva, the U.N. Humanitarian aid adviser Jan Egeland appealed for 48-hour localized truces across Syria to allow in aid.