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Manbij told US-led coalition will stay, militia rejects Turkish presence
[AlAhram] The strategic town of Manbij in northern Syria won't be abandoned by the US-led coalition, a local military official said Wednesday after the leading Kurdish militia announced its withdrawal.On Tuesday the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) said it was pulling its military advisers from Manbij, where they had been training local forces in the fight against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group. The announcement came a day after an agreement between the US and ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... over the future of the Arab-majority town, which sits just 30 kilometres (about 20 miles) from the Manbij's military council had not been privy to the details of the deal, but it has received reassurances that the US-led coalition will not leave the town, the council's chief Mohamad Mustafa Abu Adel said. "With this agreement, we have had meetings with high-level officials from the coalition who have assured us that in no case will they abandon the town of Manbij," Abu Adel told AFP. The YPG forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-Arab alliance that has received extensive backing from the US-led coalition. The militia spearheaded a victorious offensive in 2016 to drive IS from Manbij, where French and US troops belonging to the Western coalition against the jihadists are currently stationed. "The coalition forces are still there at their outposts," Abu Adel told AFP on the sidelines of a news conference. Dozens of YPG advisers were expected to leave the town within days, he added. "Then we will work (with the Americans) to set up a security framework, and we will decide together who will manage the town," he said on Wednesday. Ankara accuses the YPG of being the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is outlawed in Turkey. Washington's support for the YPG has strained relations with Ankara, which fears the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region on its southern border. Militia in Syria's Manbij 'will not accept' Turkish military presence [AlAhram] The militia controlling the flashpoint north Syrian town of Manbij said on Wednesday it would not accept any "We will not accept that," said a front man for the Manbij Military Council, a militia allied to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria, when asked by Rooters if it would accept a It said in an earlier statement it did not know the details of the ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... -U.S. roadmap for Manbij announced on Monday, but added it was capable of preserving the security and borders of the town against any external threats. Posted by: trailing wife 2018-06-07 |
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