Around 500 US coalition airstrikes have struck ISIS positions in Manbij and its surrounding countryside in the past 55 days, far more than any previous American bombing campaign in Syria.

Recently, a French coalition airstrike killed over a hundred civilians at a village north of Manbij in a highly controversial accident.

ISIS and the US backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are currently fighting for control of Manbij while the latter fighting force seems to gradually have won the upper hand in terms of moral, supplies and manpower.

15,000 civilians still live in ISIS-held districts of Manbij while thousands have already been evacuated by the largely Kurdish SDF.

Notably, the U.S. coalition seems to have abandoned Syrian rebels while increasingly aiding Syria’s Kurdish factions, a partner deemed more secular by Washington.

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