Daesh Said to Shun Withdrawal Offer in Surrounded Syrian City of Manbij

ISIS has “not responded” to the SDF’s offer and had instead “attacked our positions”, he said.

This week has been “the worst week we’ve ever tracked”, said Chris Woods, director of the London-based Airwars that tracks the USA -led coalition, to the Daily Beast.

The offer had been initiated by local actors, the Council’s spokesman Sharfan Darwish said, without elaborating.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the US coalition planes may have “mistaken” the civilians for fighters of the Islamic State group, while the SDF called the reported casualties “fabricated news”.

The air strikes occurred in the city of Manbij in northern Syria.

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.

An SDF field commander inside Manbij told AFP on Saturday that the main clashes were “near the security quarter in the center of the town”.

Garver’s comment comes after US-led coalition air strikes allegedly killed 56 civilians, including 11 children, as they fled on Tuesday from a village near Manbij.

“I want to say that we’re aware of the reports of civilian casualties that may be related to recent coalition airstrikes near Manbij city in Syria, which is one of the last junctions connecting Raqqa to the outside world”, Carter said at a press conference in Washington.

Bombing raids have meanwhile continued unabated, with the Pentagon reporting 9 strikes near Manbij on Friday, July 22.

The spokesman said the jihadists had been mounting exceptionally fierce resistance in Manbij, an ISIS bastion.

The battle has intensified as SDF units move deeper into the town, 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.

Garver estimated that the SDF had seized roughly half the town, an area still housing at least 2,000 civilians.

The ISIS “used civilians as human shields and as bait” in an effort to draw the fire of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) toward the civilians, Colonel Chris Garver, a coalition spokesman, said by video conference from Baghdad.

“IS is fiercely resisting attempts by the SDF forces to advance inside the city and is pushing children towards the frontlines in spite of the deadline”, he said.

Garver said the Syrian Arab Coalition had observed a convoy of armed Islamic State fighters “who appeared to be readying for a counterattack against SAC troops in the area” and called in a coalition strike against IS buildings and vehicles. Since June, coalition airstrikes have left more than 100 civilians dead, according to a CNN report.