28.12.2018, Manbij.
According to the Palto Suheilya Telegram channel, units of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) took control of Mambij, a Rossa Primavera New Agency correspondent reports on December 28.
Units of the SAA 1st division and the Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) 5th division took full control of the city at 6 AM local time, announced the channel. Units of the Russian military police accompanied them.
The Syrian embassy in Moscow could not confirm the credibility of this report to a Rossa Primavera New Agency correspondent.
Manbij is a strategically important city in the northern part of the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR). In August 2016, Kurdish units of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition defeated the ISIS (organization banned in Russia) militants there, and they took control of the city.
Kurdish presence in Manbij caused a great deal of anger by the Turkish authorities, because Ankara considers SDF and its Kurdish YPG units to be terrorist organizations.
Turkey has been negotiating with the US for a long time regarding the status of Manbij and depriving the Kurds of control over the city and the surrounding region. As a result, on November 1, 2018, joint Turkish-US military units began patrolling the Manbij area.
In December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the Manbij Liberation Campaign, a military operation in the northern part of the SAR. After US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria, the Kurds began negotiating with Damascus regarding the possibility of transferring the control of Manbij to the actual Syrian government.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
