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. 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. 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.
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.