Daesh recently rejected an offer for its militants to withdraw safely from the Syrian city of Manbij. Clashes with US-backed forces still raged after the offer’s expiry, a spokesman for Washington-backed forces said on Saturday.
Daesh did, however, propose a partial deal to allow the safe passage of critically ill civilians to areas controlled by the US-backed forces in exchange for allowing wounded Daesh fighters to leave the city, the spokesman said.
US-backed forces made rapid advances against the militants last month after launching a campaign to flush them out of territory along the Turkish border, through which they had for years moved weapons and fighters.
The forces quickly surrounded Manbij, but the fight to take the city has been tougher, with slow advances inside it in recent weeks.
On Thursday the Manbij Military Council said militants would be allowed to leave the city with light weapons, without a fight, if they left within 48 hours.
The offer was the idea of local actors, the Council’s spokesman Sharfan Darwish said, without elaborating.
“The deadline is approaching, time is almost up … and the battles are continuing. As far as we’re concerned, the situation has not changed,” he said early on Saturday, adding that there had been no apparent response from Daesh to the initiative.
“Our steps towards liberating Manbij are going ahead.”
Darwish said later clashes were still going on after the expiry of the offer.
Darwish did not say whether the SDF would accept the Daesh proposal on wounded fighters and sick civilians. He said Daesh had been using civilians as “human shields”.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes continued inside Manbij, and that the US-led coalition fighting the militants was bombing parts of the city and nearby areas.
Activists say dozens of civilians have been killed this week in air strikes in the city and to the north, and the opposition Syrian National Coalition called for a suspension of the air strikes while the incidents are investigated.
Editor's note: This article has been edited from the original.
