Anti-ISIL forces advance in Syria but cracks appear in Iraq

US-backed Syrian fighters surround Manbij as Iraqi government and Shiite militias argue over offensive on Fallujah.

Syrian Kurds march during the funeral of fighters killed in an assault against ISIL in the town of Manbij, in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani on June 4, 2016. Delil Souleiman / AFP

Beirut // US-backed Syrian fighters have surrounded the ISIL-held city of Manbij from three sides as they press a major new offensive against the extremists 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 government and powerful Iranian-backed Shiite militia.

The simultaneous assaults on Manbij in Syria and Falluja in Iraq, at opposite ends of ISIL territory, are two of the biggest operations yet against group.

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 ISIL 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 Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold 750km down the Euphrates River from Manbij just an hour’s drive from Baghdad.

The SDF in Syria are backed by US air strikes and a small contingent of American special forces. The Iraqi army is also backed by US air power, as well as by powerful Iran-backed Shiite militia led by politicians who have emerged as rivals of Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi.

In Syria, the government of President Bashar Al Assad also launched a separate offensive last week against ISIL, with Russian air support.

The assaults by ISIL’s disparate enemies on a variety of fronts have put unprecedented pressure on the group, although its fighters have put up strong resistance so far.

The offensives have also put large numbers of civilians in fresh peril. The United Nations estimates 50,000 civilians are trapped in Iraq’s besieged Fallujah, and more than 200,000 are at risk of being displaced by fighting around Syria’s Manbij.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that reports on the war, said the US-backed forces in northern Syria had cut the road north from Manbij to ISIL-held Jarabulus at the Turkish border.

Sharfan Darwish, spokesman for the SDF-allied Manbij Military Council, said the alliance had advanced to within 6km of Manbij, and the attack was going to plan. More than 150 extremists had been killed, with 50 of the bodies in SDF hands, he said.

Homes being used by ISIL members were now empty as they had left with their families, he said: “They took everything they could and left the city.”

The Observatory said 56 ISIL members and 19 SDF fighters had been killed so far.

The SDF and its Kurdish faction have proven to be the first US allies on the ground in Syria that are effective against ISIL, and have been bearing towards Raqqa. The Syrian government has also been advancing in the area with Russian support, in what some of its allies call a “race to Raqqa” to prevent US allies from dominating territory won from ISIL.

Russian and Syrian government warplanes killed at least 17 people in an air raid on a market in an ISIL-held town in the eastern province of Deir El Zor on Monday, the Observatory reported.

In Iraq, the main target is Mosul, a northern city that held 2 million people before it fell to ISIL two years ago.

But the Shiite-led Baghdad government veered from the plan two weeks ago with the announcement that its next offensive would be just west of Baghdad in Fallujah, a Sunni bastion where US troops faced the bloodiest battles of their own 2003-2011 occupation.

Iraqi army troops poured into a rural district of Fallujah a week ago, but halted at the outskirts of built-up areas, with Prime Minister Al Abadi saying the assault would be slowed to protect civilians.

Shiite militia criticised Mr Al Abadi’s decision to slow the advance. They say Fallujah is a more urgent target than Mosul because of its proximity to the capital, where a campaign of suicide bombings has escalated in recent weeks.

The head of the largest militia, former government minister Hadi Al Amiri, criticised the army for moving a brigade to an area near Mosul while the battle for Fallujah was still under way, saying the decision was taken under US pressure.

“Unfortunately there is an absence of precise planning for the military operations,” said Mr Al Amiri, who leads the Badr Organisation. “I believe that sending a large number of armoured vehicles and assets to Makhmour, under the pretexzt of the Mosul battle, is a betrayal of the battle for Fallujah,” he said.