SDF Makes Gains Against ISIS Outside of Manbij

U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab rebel fighters have surrounded the ISIS-controlled city of Manbij on three sides as they press forward with an offensive toward the extremist group’s de facto capital of Raqqa.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed rebel coalition led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), launched an attack on an area known as the Manbij pocket last week in an effort to push the so-called Islamic State group (ISIS) out of its last stretch along the Syrian-Turkish border.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said SDF forces had cut the road heading north from Manbij to the border town of Jarabulus, Reuters reports.

SDF forces captured key villages along the Manbij-Jarabulus highway, a key ISIS supply route, including the villages of Awn Dadat, Khirbat Hisan, Malla Saad and Safiya, an SDF official told the pro-Kurdish news outlet ARA News.

Sharfan Darwish, a spokesperson for the SDF-allied Manbij Military Council, said the SDF had advanced to within 4 miles (6.5km) of Manbij and that the offensive, which has been in the works for weeks, was proceeding as planned.

The Manbij offensive has already displaced some 20,000 civilians, the United Nations humanitarian agency said on Monday, and officials worry the fighting could uproot another 200,000 if it continues.

Two other assaults have been launched against ISIS in the past week – one by the Syrian army and its allies in Raqqa, and another led by the Iraqi army and its allies outside of Baghdad in the city of Fallujah.

Airstrikes on Market Kill at Least 17

Government airstrikes on a market in eastern Deir Ezzor province on Monday killed at least 17 people, according to activists and a monitor.

The airstrikes hit the town of Ashara, about 40 miles (65km) southeast of the provincial capital of Deir Ezzor city. At least eight children were among the dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Activists said on Monday evening they expected the death toll to rise as rescue workers continued to pull bodies from the rubble, according to a report by Al-Jazeera, which put the death toll as high as 26 people.

“The market was overcrowded on Monday because people were shopping for Ramadan,” said Observatory chief Rami Abdulrahman.

The Ashara market is one of the main markets in the area, and provides produce and resources to several surrounding towns.

Russia’s defense ministry said on Monday its planes did not carry out any combat missions in the area.

U.N. Reverses Stance on Aid Airdrops

The United Nations on Monday went back on its plan to push forward with airdrops of humanitarian aid to besieged areas across the war-torn country, saying it was putting a larger focus on securing ground access.

Although U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council last week that a formal request to the Syrian government had been made for permission to begin aid airdrops, no such request appears to have been made. Instead, U.N. officials presented a request on Monday for government approval for ground convoys to deliver food and medicine to 34 areas across the country, including 17 besieged communities.

The government in Damascus last week approved humanitarian access for the month of June to 23 of the 34 areas on the U.N.’s list of deliveries, but the U.N. said this was insufficient and gave the government until June 10 to respond to the request for land access.

Executive director of the Syria Institute Valerie Szybala told the Middle East Eye the U.N.’s reversal should not be surprising.

“I did not expect the U.N. to conduct airdrops. Airdrops were a negotiations tactic. Although disappointing, it’s not surprising. They’re not going to fly into Syrian airspace without the government’s approval.”

While the U.N. lists the number of people living under siege in Syria at 592,000, independent monitors like Siege Watch have put the number closer to 1 million, and the global NGO Doctors Without Borders has said it may be closer to 2 million.

Recommended Reads

• Business Insider: Russia Is ‘Paving the Way’ for a Major Re-Escalation in Syria
• Voice of America: Russia Triples Its Airstrikes in Syria in Past Few Days
• The Washington Post: Syria’s Children Starve as America Looks On
• War on the Rocks: How Ahrar al-Sham Has Come to Define the Kaleidoscope of the Syrian Civil War
• The Washington Post: How Syrians Prepare for Ramadan 2016 in Damascus and in Refugee Camps