A Manbij Military Council member stands beside US military vehicles near Manbij, Syria, March 7, 2017. Photo: Arab24
MANBIJ, Syria,— An official with the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force in Syria says gunmen have attacked one of their checkpoints in the northern town on Manbij, killing seven fighters.
Sharfan Darwish, of the Kurdish-led Manbij Military Council, told The Associated Press that the Tuesday morning attack hit a checkpoint at one the entrances of Manbij.
He says it’s unclear who was behind the attack and added that the “martyrs were carrying out their mission of protecting Manbij.”
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said sleeper cells of the Islamic State group carried out the attack.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but in January, IS claimed a suicide attack in Manbij that killed 19 people, including two U.S. service members and two American civilians.
In January 2019 an Islamic State group suicide attack killed four US personnel in Manbij.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces on March 23, 2019 announced the end of the “caliphate” after defeating IS jihadists in the eastern village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.
Kurdish-led forces have detained thousands of suspected IS fighters in more than four years battling the jihadists, including around 1,000 foreigners.
U.S. has for years supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). But U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced the pullout from Syria.
The Kurdish PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ considered the most effective fighting force against IS. The YPG, which make up the backbone of the SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.
In 2013, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD — the political branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016, Kurdish authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.
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