BEIRUT – U.S.-backed fighters in Syria converged from three sides on an Islamic State stronghold near the Turkish border Thursday, while Iraqi special forces pushed deeper into Fallujah, one of the last bastions of the militant group in western Iraq.
In Libya, ISIS militants were fleeing their stronghold of Sirte as forces loyal to a UN-brokered government advanced, with some fighters reportedly cutting off beards and long hair to blend in with civilians.
The anti-ISIS offensives posed a significant challenge to the extremist group as it tries to stave off multiple attacks across parts of Syria and Iraq, where it declared a so-called caliphate in 2014, and in more recently seized territory in chaotic Libya.
If the U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces capture Manbij, it will be the biggest strategic defeat for ISIS in Syria since July 2015, when it lost the border town of Tal Abyad, a major supply route to the militants’ de facto capital of Raqqa.
Manbij, which had a prewar population of 100,000, is one of the largest ISIS-held urban areas in northern Aleppo province and is also a waypoint on an ISIS supply line between Raqqa and the Turkish frontier.
In a sign of the town’s perceived significance, the SDF’s advances were accompanied by intense airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition battling the ISIS militants. The U.S. Central Command said the coalition has conducted more than 105 strikes in support of the battle to liberate Manbij.
The airstrikes recalled the battle for the Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria. That campaign saw hundreds of U.S. airstrikes to support Kurdish forces who wrested Kobani from IS in January 2015 after four months of fighting that left the town in ruins.
Since then, members of the U.S. and French military have joined in to advise the anti-ISIS forces in northern Syria.
Syrian journalist Mustafa Bali, who visited the front lines in Manbij, told The Associated Press the extremists didn’t appear to be preparing to withdraw from the town as they had from other areas. On Wednesday, black smoke covered Manbij as militants set tires ablaze in an apparent attempt to cut visibility from coalition warplanes, he said.
“Daesh is preparing for a battle inside the city,” Bali said, using an Arabic acronym for the ISIS group. SDF official Nasser Haj Mansour said Wednesday about 15,000 civilians had fled.
A statement by the Military Council of the City of Manbij, which is part of the SDF, said all roads from the east, north and south have been cut. Its forces are now close enough to target ISIS militants inside the town, but they are holding off storming it to avoid civilian casualties, the statement added.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said SDF fighters are about 800 yards from the last main road linking Manbij with the city of Aleppo. At least 132 ISIS militants, 21 SDF fighters and 37 civilians have been killed since the SDF offensive began on May 31, the Observatory said.
The Islamic State group has suffered setbacks on several fronts in the region where it captured large swaths of territory two years ago, including the loss of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra earlier this year.
In Iraq, elite counterterrorism forces rolled into southern Fallujah on Wednesday under U.S.-led coalition airpower, the first time in more than two years that government troops have entered the ISIS-held city west of Baghdad. The militant group fired back with mortars and rockets.
Fallujah is one of the last ISIS strongholds in Iraq and government forces last month began a large-scale operation to recapture it. Iraqi troops have slowly won back territory, although ISIS still controls parts of the north and west, as well as the second-largest city of Mosul.
An online statement from the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for two suicide attacks in Iraq – one that killed 19 people and wounded 46 in a mostly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad and another that killed 12 people and wounded 32 in the town of Taji, north of the capital. The figures were confirmed by medical officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner condemned the bombings as “barbaric terrorist attacks,” and he praised the “progress being made by Iraqi forces on the battlefield” in Fallujah.
In Libya, ISIS militants were retreating from the city of Sirte as militia fighters allied to a unity government pushed into the city in tanks and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns, according to officials and video posted on social media.
The capture of Mediterranean coastal city capped a monthlong offensive by Libyan militias. Sirte is the only major ISIS-held city outside Syria and Iraq.
