ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Thirty-five villages have been liberated in the campaign to push the Islamic State out of the Manbij pocket. Forces carrying out the operation are now overlooking the Manbij-Raqqa road. A coalition of forces led by the Manbij Military Council have advanced to Om Seraj hill and are overlooking the Manbij-Raqqa road, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Saturday. Since the offensive began on May 30, forces have captured more than 100 square kilometres of territory, Air Force Col. Pat Ryder, US Central Command spokesman, stated at a weekly media briefing on Friday. More than 55 coalition airstrikes have been launched against ISIS in support of the offensive, Ryder added. “The operations are led by the Manbij Military Council of the Syrian Arab Coalition, an indigenous Arab force from Manbij seeking to reclaim their hometown from ISIL,” Ryder said. The Manbij pocket stretches along 98 kilometres of the Syria-Turkey border between the Kurdish cantons of Kobani and Efrin. A primary goal of the offensive is to push ISIS off this border, thereby severing their smuggling and supply routes. These supply routes have been a vital lifeline for the terrorist group but earlier efforts of Kurdish forces to take the territory have been impeded by Turkey who does not want to see a unified Kurdish region stretched across its southern border. Turkey has given reluctant approval to the Arab-led offensive after receiving assurances from the United States that the few Kurdish troops (Peoples Protection Units, YPG) partaking in the fight would withdraw from the territory once ISIS is routed and governance of the region would be placed in the hands of Syrian Arabs. “After they take Manbij, the agreement is the YPG will not be staying,” a US military official told Reuters. “So you’ll have Syrian Arabs occupying traditional Syrian Arab land.” “What we have been told is that the YPG will predominantly act as a logistical force here and the main force will be Arabs,” Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a news conference on Thursday during a state visit to Kenya. He added that the 3,000 strong force joining the operation was dominated by at least 2,500 Arabs and around 450 members of the YPG. “We are monitoring what is being done in this process through our own intelligence network and command chain,” Erdogan added. “We will see.” US leadership is keen to stress that Kurds, though participating, are not leading the operation, a “small distinction, but an important one,” tweeted Col. Chris Garver, Chief of Public Affairs for the US anti-ISIS operation, on Friday. “The SDF operation against #ISIL in #Manbij is NOT led by the Kurds, led by Syrian Arabs,” Garver tweeted, responding to media reports that Kurdish forces were the dominant force in the operation. “The YPG is supporting the operation, but 2,000+ Syrian Arab fighters leading the assault.” The SDF, Syrian Democratic Forces, is a coalition of groups battling ISIS in Syria; the primary force in the SDF is the YPG. Kurdish leadership, however, has made it no secret that they want to integrate their three cantons of Jazire, in the east, central Kobani, and Afrin in the west, which is currently cut off by the Manbij pocket. “Sometimes military and political tactics dictate different conditions, but that does not mean that the grand strategy will be abandoned,” said YPG spokesman Nasir Mansour. “We are committed to unify the three cantons.” The United States is also hopeful that a successful campaign in the Manbij pocket could free up to 40,000 civilians living under Islamic State rule.
