ISIL in Syria ignore 48-hour window of escape from Manbij

ISIL fight on in key supply town in northern Syria.

Syrians stand next to debris and bloodstains following bombardment by government forces on the Salhin district of the northern city of Aleppo on July 21, 2016. Thaer Mohammed / AFP

BEIRUT // Nearly 40 Syrian soldiers and pro-regime fighters were killed on Friday when rebels blew up a tunnel in Aleppo and in ISIL- held Manbij, the extremists ignored the offer of a 48-hour window to leave the city in safety and carried on fighting instead.

Around 200 civilians managed to flee from Manbij but had to contend with other dangers on the way. A 20-year-old women was killed when she stepped on a landmine, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Members of the predominantly Kurdish Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) have been on the offensive in Manbij for weeks, backed by US-led coalition air strikes.

On Thursday, the Manbij Military Council — part of the SDF — said ISIL fighters were given 48 hours to leave the town with their “individual weapons,” and warned that this would be their last chance to leave with their lives.

Sherfan Darwish of the SDF said the extremists did not respond to the offer and that sporadic clashes erupted anew on Friday. The Aamaq news agency, which is linked to ISIL, said the US-led coalition had hit the centre of Manbij with 20 air strikes on Friday.

Manbij is an important hub for the fanatics and lies on a key supply route to tISIL’s self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa. If Manbij is captured by the US-backed fighters, it will be the biggest strategic defeat for ISIL in Syria since July 2015, when they lost the border town of Tal Abyad.

Syria’s second city and commercial centre Aleppo was also hit on Friday when extremists blew up a tunnel underneath a buildingused by government forces in the Old City quarter.

A video posted online by the Thuwwar Al-Sham rebel group purported to show the incident, with members of the force walking though a long tunnel and preparing barrels full of explosives.

“We are now inside the tunnel that will be detonated soon, God willing, the tunnel under the traffic branch building, which is an important headquarters for the Assad regime and its mercenaries,” a rebel says in the video.

The footage then shows a massive blast levelling a multistorey building, filmed from multiple angles.

A huge geyser of dirt and smoke shoots upwards from the scene of the blast, after which gunfire can be heard.

Aleppo was once Syria’s economic powerhouse, but it has been ravaged by the conflict that began in March 2011.

The city has been roughly divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.

The east of the city has been under siege for the past two weeks, since government forces severed the only remaining supply route into rebel-held districts.

The government advance has raised fears for more than 200,000 people who remain in the east of the city, where food shortages and spiralling prices have already been reported.

* Agence France Presse