“We announce that, with the help of the International Coalition, we will escalate our military operations to destroy the remnants of the Daesh organization and chase its sleeper cells,” read a statement from the SDF general command on Thursday using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
It vowed to “uproot” the extremist group and establish “peace and stability in our area.”
ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that targeted a restaurant in Manbij frequented by the coalition and their local Manbij Military Council partners.
Two American soldiers, one defense department official, and a contractor were killed as well as a reported five members of the local forces and at least nine civilians.
The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the SDF, sent a message to US President Donald Trump and all Americans, expressing their sorrow at the deaths of the US personnel in Syria.
“The blood of your brave fighters and the blood of thousands of martyrs of the SDF have been mixed with Kurds, Arabs, Syriac, Assyrians, and other Syrian elements,” it stated, while urging the US to continue and expand its partnership with the SDF in order to defeat ISIS.
The SDF also extended its condolences to Syrians and Americans and the families of those who died.
ISIS is trying to cause chaos and “plant fear” in the area with help from “some sides that don’t wish for stability,” the SDF said.
The SDF, backed by the international coalition, are battling the group in the last piece of significant territory it holds in the Euphrates River valley in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor.
The UK-based conflict monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated ISIS has been corralled into about 15 square kilometres of territory.
A Canadian jihadist captured by the SDF said that ISIS members with their families are crowded into ever-shrinking territory. In a video published by the SDF this week, the man named as Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed, said that thousands of fighters remain dug in there, though some are trying to get to Turkey using smugglers.
The battle for this last pocket has been tough and the SDF have taken many casualties.
