With U.S. aid, Syrians pry city from Islamic State
BEIRUT — On the streets of Manbij, men chanted slogans against the Islamic State group or clipped their beards while women walked with their faces uncovered for the first time in over 21⁄2 years, hours after the militant group was pushed out of the northern Syrian city.
U.S.-backed fighters seized the key Islamic State stronghold late Friday after two months of heavy fighting that killed more than 1,000 people and displaced thousands.
The fighters also freed hundreds of civilians the extremists had used as human shields, Syrian Kurdish officials and an opposition activist group said.
The capture of Manbij is the biggest defeat for the extremist group in Syria since July 2015, when militants lost the town of Tal Abyad on the border with Turkey. The capture of Tal Abyad deprived the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, of a direct route to bring in new foreign fighters or supplies.
Manbij is important because it lies on a key supply route between the Turkish border and the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the group’s self-styled caliphate.
Manbij had been under the militants’ control since January 2014. The Islamic State’s loss of Manbij comes two months after they lost the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
Nasser Haj Mansour, of the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, said the town of Manbij “is under full control,” adding that operations are ongoing to search for any Islamic State militants who might have stayed behind. The SDF launched its offensive to capture Manbij in late May and was supported by U.S.-led airstrikes.
400 Iranian deaths
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s semiofficial ILNA news agency reported Saturday that the families of at least 400 people killed fighting in Iranian brigades in Syria have been referred to the Martyr Foundation, which offers financial support to the relatives of those killed fighting for Iran.
The disclosure is the first time that an Iranian official has indicated how many people have been killed fighting in Iranian militias in Syria.
Iran has provided military and political backing to President Bashar Assad in Syria’s civil war.
Amateur videos posted online showed that shortly after SDF fighters captured the town late Friday scores of residents went to celebrate in the streets. A man was filmed trimming his beard with scissors and then moving to clip the beard of another man on a motorbike. Women were able to uncover their faces.
The Islamic State imposes a harsh and extreme version of Islam on the territory under its control, including a mandatory dress code. Under the extremists’ rule, women had to wear long black cloaks that covered all but their eyes while all adult men were forced to grow beards.
Haj Mansour said some Islamic State fighters were captured in the town while others fled to nearby villages.
“Military operations will continue until these villages are clean,” Haj Mansour said.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said the remaining Islamic State fighters in Manbij left last Friday along with hundreds of civilians in some 500 vehicles heading in the direction of the city of Jarablus, on the border of Turkey.
Kurdish officials did not respond to requests for comment on whether the Islamic State fighters were given a safe route to leave Manbij. During the offensive, the SDF had offered fighters such a route but they refused.
According to the Observatory, the fighting and the airstrikes have killed 1,756 people, including 438 civilians, 299 SDF fighters and 1,019 militants since the Manbij offensive began in late May.