Turkey says its strikes have killed 14 IS militants in Syria

Turkey’s state-run news agency meanwhile said coalition airstrikes and Turkish artillery fire killed 14 ISIS militants near the Turkish border.

The joint U.N., International Committee of the Red Cross, and Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy that reached Daraya Wednesday contained medicines, vaccines, baby formula, and “nutritional items for children”, the ICRC said, but no food. The U.N. estimates that 4,000 to 8,000 people now live in the suburb. Several European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Council President Donald Tusk visited Gaziantep only last month.

When Russia and the United States brokered the cease-fire between Assad and opposition forces in February, the Nusra Front and ISIS were excluded, allowing Assad’s troops and Russian and American airstrikes to continue to hit them.

The YPG has been the most effective ally on the ground for USA -led air strikes against Daesh, and previous year captured large areas from it in Hasaka province.

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations mediator of Syria peace talks, has said improved humanitarian access was one of the things he wanted to see before announcing a date for a new round of talks.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a separate report on the situation, saying Kurdish militia had been preventing civilians fleeing the Daesh advance from entering areas under their control in response to militant shelling of Sheikh Maqsoud, a Kurdish-held area of Aleppo.

SDF military adviser Nasser Haj Mansour told AFP that the alliance’s fighters were heading from the Tishreen Dam on the Euphrates towards Manbij.

At least 61 rebel fighters have been killed in the fighting, as well as 47 jihadists, nine of them suicide bombers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, while at least 29 civilians have been killed since ISIL launched the assault.

Pentagon officials said the SDF fighters advancing on Manbij are predominantly Arab and that the YPG has agreed not to retain control of the town after it is captured, but rather hand over its administration to local Arabs. An IS-affiliated news agency said coalition aircraft bombed all bridges between the two towns.

He said the target of the offensive was the town of Tabqa and its adjacent dam on the Euphrates River, which lie some 40 kilometres (25 miles) upstream. Mansour said the air base is a “major weapons depot” for the extremist group. The Observatory said no casualties had been inflicted.

While the US, in conjunction with Turkey and other nations, has been bombing Islamic State from the air, Syrian Kurdish fighters have been its chief partner on the ground.