130 IS fighters killed in battle for Syrias Manbij
101 jihadists killed in Somali raid, Ethiopia says
AFP
AFP, BEIRUT: More than 130 Islamic State group fighters have been killed in a US-backed offensive on the key jihadist-held city of Manbij in northern Syria, a monitoring group said Thursday.
US-led coalition air strikes supporting the assault by Kurdish and Arab fighters, launched on May 31, have also left 30 civilians dead, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Syrian Democratic Forces have been pushing west from the Euphrates River and have nearly encircled Manbij, a key point along ISs main supply line from the Turkish border to its eastern Syrian stronghold of Raqa.
The SDF alliance has surrounded the city from the north, east and south. Early on Thursday its fighters were advancing towards the main road leading west out of Manbij, according to Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. A statement on Thursday by the SDFs Manbij operations centre said its fighters were now close enough to target IS positions inside the city.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and medical sources inside Syria, said 132 IS jihadists and 21 SDF fighters had been killed since the start of the offensive.
Most of the Daesh fighters were killed in air raids by the international (US-led) coalition, Abdel Rahman told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for the group.
He said dozens of bodies of IS fighters had been found on Thursday morning in small villages east of Manbij.
Coalition air raids supporting the assault also killed at least 30 civilians, including 11 children, the Observatory said.
They are among a total of 447 civilians killed in coalition raids since they began in Syria in September 2014, according to the monitors tally. The Observatory says it determines whether strikes are carried out by Syrian, Russian or US-led coalition aircraft based on their locations, flight patterns and the types of planes and munitions involved.
A spokesman for the US defence department said on Wednesday that the final assault on Manbij could take place within days.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia has said that its soldiers deployed in Somalia killed 101 Shabaab fighters who on Thursday attacked an army base used by the African Union force fighting the Al-Qaeda linked group.
The Shabaab movement earlier announced a major assault on the base in Halgan in the central Hiran region of the arid Horn of Africa nation, via its Telegram messaging platform.
Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Reda dismissed a claim by the Shabaab that they had killed dozens of soldiers, while losing just 16 of their own fighters.
There was an attempt by al-Shabaab to attack our forces in central Somalia but... our forces killed 101 militants and destroyed heavy weaponry, Getachew said.
We are still assessing how many people got hurt on our side but their claim that they have killed 43 Ethiopian soldiers is an absolute lie. This is a figment of their imagination, he added.
The Mujahideen fighters stormed the base and massacred many of the Ethiopians, the Shabaab claimed on Telegram, putting the death toll among the troops at 60.
Casualty figures from this type of attack are impossible to verify independently. The Shabaab generally exaggerates, while the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) usually gives no details of losses among its ranks. On its Twitter account, AMISOMcomprising troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Ugandaconfirmed an attempted Shabaab attack but gave no figures.
The enemy was successfully repulsed, AMISOM said, claiming also to be in pursuit of the attackers.
Residents in the area close to Halgan said the attack began when a vehicle driven by a suicide bomber exploded at the entrance to the base, after which jihadist gunmen fought their way in.
There was a huge blast and then heavy exchange of gunfire started, said Osman Adan, a resident living nearby.
Shooting had died down by mid-morning Thursday and local authorities confirmed the clashes.
