U.S. Eyes Counterterrorism Win in Fresh Syria Assault
A top U.S. presidential advisor said Friday a fresh Syria assault would shut down an important transit route linking the Islamic State group's "capital" in Raqa with the heart of Europe.
As Syrian opposition forces encircled Manbij, Obama's anti-Islamic State envoy Brett McGurk painted the town near the Turkish border as an important terror transit point.
"Manbij is where we believe the Paris attackers, the Brussels attackers, they all kind of pulsed through this area," McGurk said, "from Raqa up to Manbij and then out to the capitals where they had organized their attack."
Thousands of residents have fled Manbij -- held by IS since 2014 -- but jihadists who evacuated their families stayed to defend the town, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.
For more than a week, the U.S.-led coalition has pounded the area with airstrikes, while Arab-Kurdish ground forces have completely surrounded the town.
Source: Agence France Presse
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