BEIRUT (Web Desk) – Islamic State group has freed hundreds of civilians they used as human shields while fleeing a crumbling stronghold in northern Syria.
The last remaining IS fighters abandoned Manbij near the Turkish border on Friday after a rout that the Pentagon said showed the extremists were “on the ropes”.
The retreat from the city which IS captured in 2014 marked the militants’ worst defeat yet at the hands of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an Arab-Kurdish alliance supported by US air power.
Fleeing fighters took around 2,000 civilians, including women and children, on Friday to ward off air strikes as they headed to the IS-held frontier town of Jarabulus, according to the SDF.
At least some of the civilians were later released or escaped, the alliance said on Saturday, but the whereabouts of the rest was unknown. “There are no more IS fighters” left in Manbij, an SDF member said.
Kurdish television showed footage of jubilant civilians in Manbij, including smiling mothers who had shed their veils and women embracing Kurdish fighters.
