US-backed forces open major new front against ISIL in north Syria

The operation aims to choke off the extremist group’s access to Syrian land along the Turkish border that it has long used to move foreign fighters back and forth to Europe.

Vehicles belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the United Nations wait on a street after an aid convoy entered the rebel-held Syrian town oShow more

BEIRUT // Thousands of US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters have opened a major new front in Syria’s war, launching an offensive to drive ISIL out of a swathe of northern Syria it uses as a logistics base.

The operation, which began on Tuesday after weeks of quiet preparations, aims to choke off the group’s access to Syrian land along the Turkish border that the militants have long used to move foreign fighters back and forth to Europe.

On Wednesday the fighters were reported to be making swift progress.

“It’s significant in that it’s [ISIL’s] last remaining funnel” to Europe, said a US military official.

Driving ISIL from its last remaining foothold at the Turkish border has been a top priority of the US-led coalition against the group. The group controls around 80 kilometres of the frontier stretching west from Jarablus.

A small number of US special operations forces will support the push on the ground to capture the “Manbij pocket” of territory, acting as advisers and staying back from the front lines, the official said.

“They’ll be as close as they need to be for the [Syrian fighters] to complete the operation. But they will not engage in direct combat,” the source added.

The operation is also counting on air power from the US-led coalition, which said it carried out 18 strikes near Manbij on Wednesday.

An opposition monitoring group said at least 42 civilians – including five children – were killed on Wednesday in regime, Russian and US-led coalition air strikes on northern Syria.

That toll included six civilians killed in coalition air strikes on Manbij, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It added that a further 10 civilians were killed by coalition raids on the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa city.

The Observatory said regime air strikes also killed 15 civilians in Idlib province, while Russian and regime air strikes killed at least 11 civilians in neighbouring Aleppo province,

Elsewhere, a humanitarian aid convoy entered the rebel-held town of Daraya on Wednesday, the Red Cross said, in the first such delivery since a regime siege began in 2012.

But the opposition said only medical supplies were in the delivery and British charity Save the Children said it was “shocking and completely unacceptable” that desperately needed food had been excluded.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russia announced that a local truce would be observed for 48 hours in Daraya, which lies south-west of Damascus, to ensure that aid could be delivered safely.

Temporary freezes on fighting have been introduced in Daraya and elsewhere as a way to reinforce a broader ceasefire brokered by Russia and the United States for swathes of Syrian territory.

Last month the United Nations warned that if it did not see improvement on aid access to besieged areas of Syria by June 1, it would task the World Food Programme to carry out air drops of assistance.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said both United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent staff were involved in Wednesday’s delivery.

Daraya, which has an estimated population of 8,000, was one of the first towns in Syria to erupt in demonstrations against the government in 2012, and one of the first to be placed under a strict regime siege in late 2012.

* Reuters, Agence France-Presse