U.S. Backed Rebels Take Syrian City from Daesh

Last October, amidst the whirl and rush of legislative elections in VA and with the Donald Trump madness still merely on the horizon, the widely pilloried Washington plan to build a Syrian force to oppose Ba’athists, al Qaedites, and Daesh took a quiet step forward (Daily Mail).

The Syrian Democratic Forces are an alliance of Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Turkmen and Circassian militias in the Syrian Civil War, who are primarily fighting against ISIS and other Islamist groups such as the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.

The group claims to want to set up a democratic and secular Syria and it has created a political wing called the Syrian Democratic Council to help achieve self-rule.

It was created in October 2015 and some of its forces have been backed by the US who have air-dropped them weapons including assault rifles, mortars and ammunition.
Rebels trained by the Pentagon are also believed to be serving with the SDF.

Of course, the leaked reports of SNAFUs (arms drops in the wrong place, trainees defecting to al Q, etc.) were splashed all over social media (and other media)…

…while the recent success of the US-backed SDF was less noticed (Reuters).

U.S.-backed forces have seized full control of the northern Syrian city of Manbij near the Turkish border after the last remaining Islamic State fighters, who had been using civilians as human shields, left, a spokesman for the group said Friday.

Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) were now sweeping the city after the departure of a last remaining group of militants who had been holed up in the city. They had freed over 2,000 civilian hostages who had been held by the militants, Sharfan Darwish of the SDF allied Manbij Military Council told Reuters.

“The city is now fully under our control but we are undertaking sweeping operations,” Darwish said, adding militant sleeper cells in the city were still a threat.

…

Manbij’s loss to the militants is a big blow as it is of strategic importance, serving as a conduit for transit of foreign jihadists and provisions coming from the Turkish border.

…

U.S. officials have said once the Manbij operation is completed, it would create the conditions to move on the militant group’s de facto capital of Raqqa. U.S. officials anticipate a tough battle.

America’s policy in Syria has been widely criticized, and often rightly so – in fact, I’ve done quite a bit of the criticizing. This, however, was a step in the right direction, and should be acknowledged as such. A free Syria is still a long way off, but the liberation of Manbij has brought it closer.