Victory in key city is a major success for the Obama administration
It is hard to imagine that the destiny of Syria might be shaped by somewhere with half the population of Slough or Blackpool. But the liberation of Manbij from Isil occupation has significance out of proportion to the city’s small size.
The most important consequence is that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has now lost one of its key pathways for smuggling arms and fighters from over the Turkish border, just 25 miles away, into Syria and on into the ever-smaller caliphate.
But the rebel victory at Manbij, four months in the making, also has wider geopolitical ramifications. The fighters who vanquished Isil there were not the same rebels as those who broke the Assad regime’s siege in Aleppo a week earlier. The Aleppo rebels are mostly hardline Islamists backed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Those rebels, grouped under a coalition called Jaish al-Fatah, or the Army of Conquest, overwhelmingly focus on fighting the Assad regime.
By contrast, the battle of Manbij, further to the east, was led by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF is an alliance of Arab and Kurdish militias that has been generously supported by arms, training, and air strikes from the United States.
American, British, and French special forces have undoubtedly been supporting them on the ground too.
The SDF is a clear illustration that, contrary to popular wisdom, there are
effective, non-jihadist ground forces in Syria today. Success in Manbij is therefore a major success for the Obama administration, whose cautious and patient approach to Isil has sometimes appeared ineffectual.
And yet this strategy is not without its drawbacks. The SDF is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, a sister organisation of the PKK rebels who have fought the Turkish state for decades. The YPG have also been carving out an autonomous area in northern Syria, which they call Rojava.
For Turkey, the prospect of a hostile Kurdish entity on its southern border is a threat every bit as serious as Isil itself. This is why Ankara was furious
‘Isil has now lost one of its key pathways for smuggling arms and fighters from over the Turkish border’
when photographs appeared in May showing US troops wearing YPG patches. The Syrian war has made for strange friendships and rivalries: one Nato ally shelling the YPG, while another fights alongside it. The Kurds had already ignored a Turkish red line by crossing westward over the Euphrates river in December. Their push into Manbij is going to compound Turkish concerns, and possibly worsen US-Turkey relations, frayed after last month’s failed coup.
This geopolitical wrangling is, of course, irrelevant to those in Manbij who smoked cigarettes, shaved their beards, and burned their niqabs with uncontained joy this weekend. They could do so free from fear of flogging, amputation, or beheading.
Sadly, it will be many months, at least, before their compatriots in Raqqa or Iraqi neighbours in Mosul, both much bigger cities, enjoy the same taste of freedom from Isil’s suffocating blanket of religious fascism.