A U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias seized nearly all of the strategic northern Syrian city of Manbij after a more than two-months’ long offensive against ISIS militants, a rights group reported Saturday.
The militias, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, are now sweeping through the city, located in the northeast part of Aleppo province. Operations are still under way in the center of town and some ISIS members are still hiding there, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“The Syrian Democratic Forces are nearly in full control of Manbij. Operations are still underway to comb the center of town and the northern part of the center of town,” the observatory said on Saturday.
An earlier report that said militias are in full control of the city has been knocked down.
Activists CNN has spoken to in the city say ISIS still controls at least one neighborhood and intense clashes are ongoing in others.
Syrian Kurdish journalist Mustafa Bali told CNN that “there are still clashes in Manbij, the SDF does not fully control it yet.”
The neighborhood of Al-Sirb is still under ISIS control and there is ongoing fighting in the central market, Bali said.
A US official said the coalition is reporting that Manbij is not fully freed.
Hundreds of civilians and combatants so far have died in the fighting.
The town, under ISIS control for two years, is yet another major stronghold the terror group is in danger of losing.
In recent months, ISIS ceded parts of Sirte in Libya and Falluja in Iraq after other anti-ISIS military actions. The offensive to wrest Manbij from ISIS began May 31.
Around 25 miles from the Turkish border, Manbij is a strategic point for ISIS, and the terror group’s principal hub between Raqqa, the capital of its self-declared Islamic State caliphate, and Turkey.
It has been a key spot in a route for the ISIS smuggling of weapons and foreign fighters.
“Cut them off there and they’re totally isolated in Raqqa. So it’s critical, strategic, and we have now launched an operation long in planning to go after it,” an official told CNN at the beginning of the offensive.
Casualty breakdown
The observatory said 432 civilians, among them 104 children and 54 women, were killed since Manbij operations started. It said coalition airstrikes killed 203 of them and snipers, landmines and machine gun fire left 229 dead.
Clashes between the militias and ISIS left hundreds of combatants dead. That includes 269 militia forces — among them a commander and three European fighters — and 932 ISIS militants, the observatory said.
The “symbolic value” of Manbij
Global Risk Insights, a publication that covers and analyzes news events, published an essay in July explaining that “the operation’s ultimate goal is to close a strategic pocket for ISIS between the Turkish border and the city of Raqqa in central Syria.”
Raqqa province has “symbolic value,” the essay said, because “it was the first province the Syria regime lost in the opposition in early 2013 — embodying Damascus’ lack of control.” That’s a reference to President Bashar al-Assad’s government based in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
The north-central province “was highly coveted by ISIS, as it is the Syrian regime’s old bastion, and home to the Syrian air force, with important defensive capacities.”
The offensive forced ISIS to fight on different fronts, stretching ISIS’ resources, the essay said.
The fight for Aleppo city
Fighting rages south of Aleppo city between rebels and government forces.
Militants from Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham, Islamic factions and rebel fighters took over parts of an artillery school in the southwestern entrance of the city, the observatory said.
This comes amid clashes between the rebels and regime forces and aerial bombardment against rebels by Russian and Syrian warplanes, the observatory said.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said soldiers defending military academies south of the city have “inflicted heavy losses” on “terrorists.”
Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham recently changed its name from the al Nusra Front. The al Nusra Front had been al Qaeda’s branch in Syria.
But the new name signifies a new tactic by the group. It has broken its affiliation with al Qaeda and any external forces but ideologically remains committed to jihad in Syria.
Syrian government troops completely encircled rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo city last week, cutting off all supply lines to those areas.
Fierce fighting has ensued as rebel militias have attempted to break the siege, and regime troops, backed by Russian air power, have responded with intense strikes on opposition-controlled areas.
Intense battles — some of the fiercest in the five-year conflict to date — have broken out this week as rebels attempt to drive through government lines from eastern Aleppo city and reconnect with opposition-held territory in the west, in Aleppo province outside the city.
Fighting in the strategically crucial Al Ramouseh neighborhood in south Aleppo is ongoing, Rami Abdulrahman, the observatory director, told CNN.