Western-backed Kurdish forces encircle strategic town in Syria’s north

PanARMENIAN.Net - Kurdish-led fighters completed their encirclement Friday, June 10 of a key town held by the Islamic State group in northern Syria, part of a Western-backed offensive that could see a major strategic victory over the militants, the Associated Press reports.

The advance on Manbij, near the Turkish border, coincided with a Syrian army offensive supported by Russian airstrikes that brought troops closer to the city of Raqqa, the IS extremists' de facto capital.

The surrounding of Manbij by the Syria Democratic Forces followed the capture of dozens of nearby villages and farms near the Turkish border by the predominantly Kurdish group.

The coalition, backed by the U.S. and France, has been pressing an offensive since late May to try to capture the Islamic State stronghold, one of its largest in Aleppo province. Manbij is a waypoint on an IS supply line between Raqqa and the Turkish frontier.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an IS commander from North Africa was killed in the latest round of fighting. More than 130 jihadists have been killed since May 31, when the SDF offensive began, AP says.

If the SDF captures Manbij, it will be the biggest strategic defeat for IS in Syria since July 2015, when it lost the border town of Tal Abyad, another major supply route for the militants.

The campaign coincided with a Syrian army offensive that brought troops to about 15 kilometers from the IS-held air base of Tabqa near Raqqa. Backed by intense Russian airstrikes, the Syrian troops seized a major intersection that leads to the air base and nearby oil fields, according to state media and the Observatory.

The latest push by SDF in the Manbij area has almost isolated IS positions in Aleppo province from the Turkish border.

In neighboring Iraq, government forces cleared more territory won back from the Islamic State group on the southern edge of Fallujah, held by the militants for more than two years.