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U.S.-backed Syria force closes in on Islamic State-held city; slow Iraq advance causes rift
Source: Reuters
World | Mon Jun 6, 2016 1:51pm EDT
U.S.-backed Syria force closes in on Islamic State-held city; slow Iraq advance causes rift
BEIRUT/BAGHDAD | BY JOHN DAVISON AND MAHER CHMAYTELLI
U.S.-backed Syrian fighters have surrounded the Islamic State-held city of Manbij from three sides as they press a major new offensive against the jihadists near the Turkish border, a spokesman for the fighters said on Monday.
But in a sign of the difficulty world powers have faced in building a coalition to take on the self-declared caliphate, the slow pace of a separate assault by the Iraqi army on a militant bastion near Baghdad caused a rift between the Shi'ite-led government and powerful Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia.
The simultaneous assaults on Manbij in Syria and Falluja in Iraq, at opposite ends of Islamic State territory, are two of the biggest operations yet against Islamic State in what Washington says is the year it hopes to roll back the caliphate.
The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), including a Kurdish militia and Arab allies that joined it last year, launched the Manbij attack last week to drive Islamic State from its last stretch of the Syrian-Turkish frontier. If successful it could cut the militants' main access route to the outside world, paving the way for an assault on their Syrian capital Raqqa.
Last week Iraqi forces also rolled into the southern outskirts of Falluja, an insurgent stronghold 750 km down the Euphrates River from Manbij just an hour's drive from Baghdad.
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U.S.-backed Syria force closes in on Islamic State-held city; slow Iraq advance causes rift
BEIRUT/BAGHDAD | BY JOHN DAVISON AND MAHER CHMAYTELLI
U.S.-backed Syrian fighters have surrounded the Islamic State-held city of Manbij from three sides as they press a major new offensive against the jihadists near the Turkish border, a spokesman for the fighters said on Monday.
But in a sign of the difficulty world powers have faced in building a coalition to take on the self-declared caliphate, the slow pace of a separate assault by the Iraqi army on a militant bastion near Baghdad caused a rift between the Shi'ite-led government and powerful Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia.
The simultaneous assaults on Manbij in Syria and Falluja in Iraq, at opposite ends of Islamic State territory, are two of the biggest operations yet against Islamic State in what Washington says is the year it hopes to roll back the caliphate.
The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), including a Kurdish militia and Arab allies that joined it last year, launched the Manbij attack last week to drive Islamic State from its last stretch of the Syrian-Turkish frontier. If successful it could cut the militants' main access route to the outside world, paving the way for an assault on their Syrian capital Raqqa.
Last week Iraqi forces also rolled into the southern outskirts of Falluja, an insurgent stronghold 750 km down the Euphrates River from Manbij just an hour's drive from Baghdad.
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-manbij-idUSKCN0YS0O8
