</s>Image copyright AFP Image caption The Manbij Military Council is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance

A US-allied Syrian militia has said it will hand over villages west of the town of Manbij to the army in order to stop Turkish-backed rebels taking them.

The Manbij Military Council, part of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, announced it had "transferred defence of the frontline".

The move came after a deal was agreed with Russia, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad, it added.

The villages have been a focus of fighting in recent days.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government or Turkey, whose troops have been supporting a rebel offensive aimed at driving Islamic State militants from a border area north-west of Manbij and limiting gains by Kurdish fighters.

Syria's military has accused Turkey of a "flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty".

Since launching Operation Euphrates Shield in August, the Turkish-backed rebels have captured more than 1,900 sq km (734 sq miles), according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency.

After they captured the IS stronghold of al-Bab last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that the rebels would next move towards Manbij.

Mr Erdogan also said the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia, which dominates the SDF and the Turkish government considers an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), should be forced to withdraw.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Turkish-backed Syrian rebels drove IS militants out of the town of al-Bab last month

The YPG captured Manbij from IS militants in August, but it agreed three months later to move its forces east of the River Euphrates after setting up the Manbij Military Council with local Arabs.

But Mr Erdogan rejected claims by the US that Kurdish fighters had left.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Manbij Military Council told Reuters news agency that a string of eight villages about 27km (17 miles) west of Manbij that it controlled had come under heavy artillery bombardment by the Turkish-backed rebels and that there had been fierce clashes.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Turkey's president has said the rebels will move towards Manbij from al-Bab

One SDF fighter and two Turkish-backed rebels were killed in the fighting, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

On Thursday, the Manbij Military Council said in a statement that defending the town and countering Turkey's "invasion plan" were among its objectives.

It had therefore "agreed with Russia to hand over villages on the frontline with Euphrates Shield... to the border guards of the Syrian state", the statement added.

Syrian government forces are deployed just to the south of al-Bab and were involved in clashes with the Turkish-backed rebels shortly before the town fell.

In a separate development, the commander of the US-led coalition against IS said Russian aircraft had mistakenly bombed SDF fighters 16km (10 miles) south-west of Manbij, resulting in an unspecified number of casualties.

Lt Gen Stephen Townsend said the Russian military had thought it was bombing villages held by IS.

However, Russian media cited the Russian defence ministry as denying that Russian or Syrian aircraft had launched any strikes on US-backed forces.</s>The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are to hand over a massive section of their territory west of Manbij to the Syrian Arab Army in order to create a buffer zone against the Turkish Army and Turkey-led forces in northern Syria. The map above is an initial estimate of the area which will be handed over to pro-government forces and not official.

In recent days the Euphrates Shield operations room (a coalition of Turkey-led armed Islamist groups, backed by the Turkish Armed Forces) has launched an offensive against the the SDF in order to capture the strategic crossroads city of Manbij.

The ferocity of the new Euphrates Shield offensive against the SDF has incited the Manbij Military Council (MMC) to consider a local military cooperation agreement with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) which includes pro-government access to SDF territories in northern Syria.

The MMC has released the following statement on this decision:

“To reach these objectives [the defense of Manbij] we have transferred, after reaching a new alliance with Russia, the defence of the line to the west of Manbij – where the villages between us and the gang groups [FSA, Ahrar al-Sham] affiliated to the Turkish army are – to Syrian state forces.”

The area being handed over to the Syrian Arab Army will serve just as much as a political buffer zone as a military one. The true nature of the Erdogan regime’s ambitions in Syria will soon be revealed to the world based on whether it chooses to attack government-held areas or not. By choosing to commit to an offensive against pro-government forces, the Erdogan regime will demonstrate that it pursues an imperialist agenda in Syria in direct violation of the territorial sovereignty of that country and against the wishes of its legitimate government.

Advertisements</s>A Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighter walks near residents who had fled Tel Abyad as they re-enter Syria from Turkey, after the YPG took control of the area in Tel Abyad town, Raqqa governorate, Syria, June 23, 2015. REUTERS/Rodi Said

ANKARA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Turkey is ruling out compromise with the United States over the involvement of Kurdish militia fighters in an assault in Syria, an obstacle for Washington's plan to deploy its strongest allies on the ground in a decisive showdown with Islamic State.

Donald Trump has made defeating Islamic State one of the key goals of his presidency, and his new administration received a draft Pentagon plan on Monday to accelerate the campaign.

Raqqa in Syria, one of Islamic State's two de facto capitals along with Mosul in Iraq, is expected to be the scene of the final battle to crush the jihadists' self-proclaimed Caliphate sometime this year, after a U.S.-backed Iraqi government assault on Mosul already under way since October.

But putting together a united ground force to take Raqqa has so far proven a confounding task in Syria, where the United States, Turkey, Russia, Iran and Arab states have all backed local forces in a multi-sided civil war since 2011. All the foreign powers oppose Islamic State, but their Syrian proxies have mainly fought against one another.

Turkey, with the second largest army in NATO, is adamant that Washington should switch support for the planned Raqqa offensive from the Kurdish YPG militia to Syrian rebels Turkey has trained and led against Islamic State for the past year.

For the U.S. administration, nervous about whether the Turkish-backed force is large enough and sufficiently trained, the decision sets Trump's wish for quick battlefield victories against the need to maintain its strategic alliance with Turkey.

Ankara views the YPG as the Syrian extension of the Kurdish PKK militant group, which has fought an insurgency in Turkey's southeast since 1984 and is considered a terrorist group by both the United States and European Union.

"Our soldiers will not be fighting together with people who shot us and killed our soldiers and are trying to kill us," one senior Turkish security official, briefed on recent meetings between Turkish and U.S. strategists, told Reuters.

"This message was delivered to the Americans."

President Tayyip Erdogan reinforced the point on Tuesday, saying Turkey "cannot accept" any alliance with the YPG. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told the ruling AK Party that "working side by side with any terrorist group" was out of the question.

Erdogan, who had an increasingly testy relationship with President Barack Obama, has welcomed Trump's election as a chance for a fresh start. But the two NATO allies appear to be on a collision course over strategy in Syria.

U.S. Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, who commands the U.S.-led coalition effort against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, told a Pentagon news briefing on Tuesday a role for the Kurds was still in Washington's plan.

"There are going to be Kurds assaulting Raqqa for sure," he said. "The number, the size of them, and how many Kurdish units are participating... I can't really say right now."

He said he had seen no evidence linking Washington's Kurdish allies to attacks on Turkey. He did not specifically name the YPG, which fights as part of a U.S.-backed alliance called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that also includes Arabs.

Turkish officials say the links between the YPG and PKK are beyond dispute and that the group's advances will fuel anti-Kurdish sentiment in predominantly Arab parts of Syria such as Raqqa, and threaten Syria's territorial integrity.

Turkey entered Syria last August in support of a 3,000-strong force of Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels, in an operation called Euphrates Shield.

It took Jarablus on the Euphrates river, cleared Islamic State fighters from a roughly 100 km (60-mile) stretch of the border, then moved south to al-Bab, a strategic town now all but secured after three months of fighting against Islamic State.

Turkey's aim was also to stop the YPG from crossing the Euphrates westwards and linking three mainly Kurdish cantons it holds in northern Syria, preventing it from carving out a self-governing territory analogous to Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. Turkey fears that would embolden its own large Kurdish minority to try to forge a similar territory inside Turkey.

One plan Ankara has presented to Washington would have a Turkish-led FSA force of around 10,000 push south to Raqqa from the YPG-held border town of Tal Abyad. That would roll back YPG gains and separate two of the Kurdish-dominated cantons. Washington has so far been non-committal. "We told them there are many alternatives for Raqqa and they didn't disagree," said one Turkish official familiar with the talks. "They said 'we understand your sensitivities, we don’t recognize their (YPG) territorial ambitions'." Turkey and its Syrian rebel force was "ready at any time to do Raqqa, after clearing al-Bab," the official said. A second senior Turkish official, exasperated at U.S. willingness to work with a NATO ally's enemy, said some in Washington argued they had already invested too much in the YPG to pull out. But he said military planning was still under way and U.S. generals had "taken all this (Turkish) feedback back to Washington." Turkey says it has another 7,000 trained Syrian rebels ready on top of the 3,000-strong force active in Euphrates Shield, to which Arab fighters from the U.S.-backed SDF would be welcome. "We told them we have enough forces, enough Free Syrian Army. Your generals can see them with their own eyes," the first Turkish official said of the discussions with U.S. counterparts. "Everything needed militarily was concretely explained. They were briefed on the numbers, the strategy and the map." One possible compromise solution may be that the force that assaults Raqqa, potentially including the YPG, quickly withdraws and turns the city over to local control, including the largely Arab forces backed by Turkey. "I'm not really sure it really matters what the composition is of the force that goes there to liberate it," said Townsend, the U.S. commander. "What matters really in my mind is the composition of the force that stays there and governs and secures Raqqa after it's liberated from ISIS." A similar agreement in Manbij, some 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Raqqa, quickly broke down. The YPG helped capture the city from Islamic State last year in a U.S.-backed campaign operating under the SDF umbrella, on the understanding with Turkey that it would then withdraw. Turkey says the YPG remains in the city, and the Turkish army and allied Syrian rebels attacked nearby villages held by the Kurdish militia on Wednesday, a spokesman for the local authorities in the city said. Turkish officials fear their increasingly warm ties with Russia, one of the main sponsors of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, could also complicate their efforts to deepen battlefield alliances with the United States. The Euphrates Shield operation at one point had Russian air support in the fight for al-Bab. Turkey and Russia sponsored a fragile ceasefire and recent talks between the Syrian government and opposition in Kazakhstan -- from which the U.S. was excluded. But a senior Turkish official said cooperation with Russia was a reflection of the "realities on the ground" rather than a strategic choice, and partly a result of the lack of U.S. support for the Syrian opposition. "If Obama had not abandoned the Syrian opposition psychologically, politically and militarily, then maybe there would be no Russian military presence," the official said.</s>Syrian government forces recaptured Palmyra from the Islamic State group on Thursday, scoring a victory against the militants who had seized the historic town in December for the second time, a Syrian military statement said.

The military said troops gained full control of the desert town in central Syria following a series of military operations carried out with the help of Russian air cover and in cooperation with “allied and friendly troops” — shorthand for the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. Hezbollah is fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in the civil war.

IS defenses around the town had begun to erode on Sunday, with the government troops reaching Palmyra’s outskirts on Tuesday. The SANA news agency reported earlier that government troops had entered the town’s archaeological complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, around mi-day, then the town itself, as IS militants fled the area.

This is the government’s second campaign to retake the desert town. It seized Palmyra from Islamic State militants last March only to lose it again 10 months later.

Before the civil war gripped Syria in 2011, Palmyra was a top tourist attraction, drawing tens of thousands of visitors each year.

The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, had said earlier that Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed by his defense minister that Syrian troops had gained control of Palmyra, with support from Russian warplanes.

The Syrian government’s push has relied on ground support from Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and Russian air cover, according to Hezbollah’s media outlets.

The town, according to Mohammed Homsi, the director of the activist-run Palmyra News Network, is almost entirely deserted. Islamic State fighters reportedly evacuated the last of their relatives on Sunday, he said.

Archeologists have decried what they say is extensive damage to its priceless ruins.

Drone footage released by Russia’s Defense Ministry earlier this month showed new damage to the facade of Palmyra’s Roman-era theater and the adjoining Tetrapylon — a set of four monuments with four columns each at the center of the colonnaded road leading to the theater.

A 2014 report by a U.N. research agency disclosed satellite evidence of looting while the ruins were under Syrian military control. Opposition factions have also admitted to looting the antiquities for funds.

The IS group has twice used the town’s Roman theater as a stage for mass killings, most recently in January, when they shot and beheaded a number of captives they said had tried to escape their December advance. Other IS killings were said to have taken place in the courtyard of the Palmyra museum and in a former Russian base in the town.

The developments in Palmyra came against the backdrop of Syrian peace talks underway in Geneva, which have been without any tangible breakthroughs so far. Diplomats and negotiators have set their sights on modest achievements in the latest round of talks, after a week of discussions centering on setting an agenda for future talks.

On Thursday, U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura was due for another round of meetings with both the government delegation and opposition groups.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told reporters Wednesday that “the parties have agreed to … discuss all issues in a parallel way, on several tracks.”

After a Damascus request, the issue of terrorism is also on the table, he had said. Russia is a key sponsor of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government in Damascus.

A top Syrian opposition negotiator, Nasr al-Hariri, said the talks would likely culminate in a closing ceremony on Friday and the parties may be back in Geneva for further discussions in a few weeks.

Setting the agenda and strategy to guide discussions has proven difficult as the main conflicting parties dig in their heels over form and semantics.

In Turkey, the country’s foreign minister said that with the completion of an operation to retake the IS-held town of al-Bab in northern Syria, Turkish troops will head to the Syrian town of Manbij next, to oust U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara views as terrorists and a threat to Turkey.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday that Turkey would not shy away from attacking the Kurdish group that dominates the Syria Democratic Forces, which captured Manbij last year after weeks of deadly fighting with IS.

He renewed calls for the new U.S. administration not to support the Kurdish forces. Cavusoglu stressed that an operation to take Manbij had not started yet, but acknowledged that skirmishes between Turkish-backed forces and the Kurdish fighters may have occurred.

That front line in northern Syria was further complicated by a concurrent announcement by the Syrian Kurdish side on Thursday that they had agreed with Russia to withdraw from some of the territory between al-Bab and Manbij, to make room for a buffer.

The Manbij Military Council, part of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said that under the deal, they will withdraw from a front line as the rival Turkish-backed forces near the Euphrates River. This will allow Syrian government forces to create a buffer between them.

However, Cavusoglu denied any such agreement was reached.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government. The Turkish and Syrian authorities have long regarded each other with thinly-veiled hostility.</s>The US is "taking all necessary measures" to defend the Syrian city of Manbij in the Aleppo Governorate, 30 kilometers west of the Euphrates, which is currently under control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), from an attack by the Turkish Armed Forces and fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the SDF representative told Sputnik Turkiye.

In particular, he said, US servicemen have set up a military base in the city and are sending an additional contingent there. They are also deploying heavy weaponry and armored vehicles to the area.

Alongside setting up the military base in Manbij, the US is deploying servicemen and armaments to the northern and western parts of the city.

"Turkey and the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) are getting ready for an attack on Manbij, and so we are getting ready to defend the city and are in constant talks with our ally, the US," the SDF representative told Sputnik.

He further explained that last week they had a meeting with Joseph Votel, the commander of the US Central Command (USCENTCOM), during which they discussed a security threat to Manbij coming from Turkey.

"In his turn, Votel assured us that the American side will take all necessary measures to prevent an attack by Turkish forces on the city," he added.

The SDF representative further noted that US servicemen will be holding talks with representatives from Turkey and added that the US intends to increase its contingent in Manbij, sending heavy weaponry and tanks there in order to shore up the city's defenses.

Just two days after their meeting with Votel, the US set up a military base in the city to be able to defend it from an attack by Turkish armed forces. The US flag was flown above the base.

Flying the flag, he said, is a message, a warning to Turkey that the city is under the defense of the US.

In addition, he said, armored vehicles under the US flag have been deployed in the north of the city. US servicemen have been also deployed to its western areas. On Tuesday they sent more tanks and armored vehicles to Manbij and promised that the city will also be under the defense of the US-led coalition forces.

Never miss a story again — sign up to our Telegram channel and we'll keep you up to speed!</s>Earlier today, the Euphrates Shield forces seized two villages from the Kurdish-led ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’ (SDF) amid an offensive announced by Erdogan to take control of Manbij city.

Advancing to the southern outskirts of Al-Arimah town, Ahrar al-Sham, Failaq al-Sham, various predominately Turkmen ‘Free Syrian Army’ (FSA) factions and units of the Turkish Armed Forces managed to seize control of Tall Turin and the neighboring village of Al-Qarah.

Kurdish forces also exchanged artillery fire with the Turkish-backed forces across the entire frontier in northeastern Aleppo.

Meanwhile, the US-backed SDF captured the villages of Maqbarah, Abu Mandil, Maqta Hajar as Saghir and Abu al Khaf from ISIS in a region bordering territory held by the non-hostile Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

ISIS and the Euphrates Shield troops no longer share a frontline in Aleppo province; effectively, the Turkish-led forces are only able to attack either the SAA or SDF.

Moments ago, some opposition sources even claimed that the Turkish Army has captured Al-Arimah; this could not be independently verified by Al-Masdar News.

The Euphrates Shield offensive looks to curtail Kurdish influence in northern Syria. The SDF is led primarily by the Kurdish YPG, an affiliate of the outlawed PKK.</s>BEIRUT, March 2 (Reuters) - Villages controlled by the Manbij Military Council will be handed to the Syrian government in the coming days under a deal agreed with Russia, an official from the council said on Thursday.

The Manbij Military Council is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of U.S.-allied militias including the powerful Kurdish YPG, which is fighting against Islamic State group but is regarded by Turkey as a militant organisation.</s>Turkey-backed Syrian fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) launched an offensive into Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria on 1 March.

A statement published on an FSA-linked social media account claimed the rebels had taken control of Tell Tarwin and Qara, two towns near the city of Manbij. The area is controlled by the Manbij Military Council, part of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that liberated the city from Isis in August. Reuters reported the villages were located 27 km (17 miles) west of Manbij.

"There is a very big attack by the Euphrates Shield and Turkish army on the villages and areas of the Manbij Military Council," Sharfan Darwish, the council's spokesman, told Reuters. "There are fierce clashes ... and heavy artillery bombardment."

The Kurdish militias-affiliated news agency ANHA reported the clashes between the Syrian rebels and the Kurdish forces are still in progress. It also reported that the council was engaged on another front, against Isis, south of the city, after the jihadists attacked the towns of Mustariha and Jadida.

As part of the operation Euphrates Shield, Turkey offered military support to FSA forces to fight Isis, which was controlling the town of al-Bab and nearby areas. The town was recaptured from Isis last week after months of fighting.

Turkey's next target, as announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on 28 February, was Manbij. Turkey considers groups linked to the SDF such as the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) as terrorists, due to their affiliation to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The US lists the PKK as a terrorist organisation, but it considered the SDF essential partners in the fight against Isis, and has provided military training and support to the Kurdish militias as they advance towards Isis' Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

Speaking to Foreign Policy magazine, the commander of US forces in Iraq and Syria Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend said the SDF was "going to need additional combat power" if they want to defeat Isis in Raqqa. The US administration has yet to decide whether to provide the Kurdish forces with the heavy military equipment they would need to launch a successful assault.

The Kurds see Isis and Turkey as equally mortal enemies. Abu Amjed, a 38-year-old former pharmacist and leader of the Manbij Military Council, told the publication that "the bigger threat is Turkey".</s>BEIRUT, March 1 (Reuters) - The Turkish army and allied Syrian rebel groups on Wednesday attacked villages held by U.S.-allied militias near the city of Manbij in northern Syria, a spokesman for the militias said.

There was no immediate comment from Turkey, which is waging a campaign with allied Syrian rebel groups to carve out a buffer zone in northern Syria. The attack focused on a string of villages controlled by the Manbij Military Council, part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, the spokesman for the Manbij Military Council told Reuters.

Sharfan Darwish told Reuters the villages were located 27 km (17 miles) west of Manbij. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said this week Manbij was the next target of the Turkish campaign in northern Syria.

The SDF includes the Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey views as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group that has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey. (Reporting by Tom Perry; editing by John Stonestreet)
The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces' Manbij Military Council, "after reaching a new alliance with Russia," hands over a vast expanse of territory west of Manbij to the Syrian Army to create a buffer zone between the SDF and Turkish-backed rebels.