Manbij and the road to autonomous administration

Due to its distinguished geographical location and strategic importance, Manbij remained at the heart of the events taking place during the crisis in Syria, as the city’s residents participated in peaceful demonstrations calling for freedom in 2011, the first of which was on April 21.

Dozens of armed groups were established in Manbij in 2012; under different banners and names, and they were able to expel the forces of the Damascus government from the city and countryside in July 2012.

The most prominent of these groups were “Omar bin Al-Khattab Battalion, Suqour Al-Sham, Manbij Revolutionaries, Ali bin Abi Talib, Ahrar Syria, Mujahideen of Manbij, Umm Al-Awasem, Jund Muhammad, Ramah Al-Rafidain, Ahrar Al-Sham, Ansar Al-Sunna, Suqour Al-Sham, Ibad Al-Rahman, Al-Farouq, Al-Nu’man, Sultan Suleiman Shah, Aisha, Knights of the Euphrates, Abu Ayoub Al-Ansari, Generations of the Future, Ashab Al-Yameen, Thuwar Syria and the Ummah Movement.”

These groups divided the neighborhoods and villages of Manbij among themselves, so that each area would be administered separately, amid daily robberies and crimes, and internal fighting, all of which was accompanied by aerial bombardment by the Damascus government forces that targeted the city on an almost daily basis

ISIS control of Manbij

In January 2014, ISIS mercenaries infiltrated the neighborhoods of Manbij city, and were able to occupy the city after detonating 4 car bombs, and targeting the city with a number of mortar shells from nearby villages.

ISIS occupied the entire city and countryside, while tightening its control over large areas in al-Raqqa, al-Hasaka, Deir ez-Zor, and areas near the city of Aleppo, the capital Damascus, and the middle of the Syrian desert.

The city, which is adjacent to the Turkish border, was used as a center to receive thousands of mercenaries and jihadists coming from different countries of the world, and as a safe place for the most prominent ISIS leaders in Syria.

The city was also considered a link between the areas controlled by ISIS mercenaries in Syria and Iraq and external regions such as Turkey and Europe, as the confessions and documents of ISIS mercenary leaders proved that dozens of mercenaries set out from Manbij to carry out suicide operations inside European cities, with Turkish complicity.

The cultural city and home of poets, as it was known, turned into one of the most terrifying areas; as a result of the criminal rulings and operations carried out by ISIS mercenaries, amid the presence of senior mercenary elements in the city.

The Union of Components

On June 1, 2016, the Manbij Military Council forces, which included thousands of people from the region from different components, and which are under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces, with air support from the international coalition, launched a military operation from two axes: the Qara Qozak Bridge east of the city, and the Tishreen Dam south of it, to surround the city of Manbij and liberate it from ISIS after two years of control.

On June 3, Faisal Saadoun Abu Laila, one of the military leaders of the campaign, was seriously wounded, following a bombing carried out by ISIS on the outskirts of the town of Abu Qalqal, 15 km south of the city of Manbij. On June 5, 2016, the military leader Faisal Saadoun Abu Laila was martyred in a hospital in the city of Sulaymaniyah in Southern Kurdistan after being transferred to receive treatment.

The Manbij Military Council changed the name of its operations, which were launched under the name "Manbij Liberation Campaign", to "The Campaign of the Martyr Leader Faisal Abu Laila to Liberate the City of Manbij", a week after the start of the military campaign.

Eliminating ISIS in Manbij

The battles continued after the fighters surrounded the city from 4 sides, and with great efforts the city was liberated from ISIS mercenaries who used civilians as human shields on August 12 and was officially announced on August 15.

Some groups of ISIS mercenaries who were entrenched in the al-Sarrab neighborhood north of Manbij headed towards the city of Jarabulus, which was occupied by Turkey on August 26.

On August 12, 2016, after 73 days of battles, the Manbij Military Council fighters raised the flags of the council and the Syrian Democratic Forces, and pictures of the council's martyrs in the city's neighborhoods, and announced the end of ISIS mercenaries' control over the city and countryside, and the elimination of the last point of contact between ISIS and the outside world via Turkish territory.

The operation to liberate the city of Manbij in the summer of 2016 was a strategic victory, in blocking the most important ISIS routes between its stronghold in the city of Raqqa and the Syrian outside world via Turkish territory, and a major turning point in the war against the global threat with international participation; It led to the destruction of the alleged ISIS "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq in Baghougz.

The Manbij Military Council was considered the strong shield for the residents of the city and the countryside, so thousands of young men joined the military academies and participated in the operations to liberate other Syrian regions, especially the city of Raqqa, the alleged capital of ISIS mercenaries, as the commander-in-chief of the Manbij Military Council, Adnan Abu Amjad, was martyred alongside dozens of young men from Manbij, in the battles to liberate the city of Raqqa from ISIS in the summer of 2017.

The people of Manbij participated in the spring of 2019 in the historic battles around the town of Baghouz, the last stronghold of ISIS in Syria, as the military councils under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces were able to end the presence of ISIS on Syrian territory, 3 years after the liberation of Manbij, which was a major turning point in the campaign to eliminate ISIS.

The experience of autonomous administration and the participation of components

The city and its countryside enjoyed a civil council at the beginning of the liberation of the city in an emergency manner, which was formed in April 2016, to raise the problems of removing the rubble of the destruction in the city, and activating the service and security institutions, as primary issues, which the council worked on in the phase following the liberation.

The council took the priority of forming local councils in the villages, towns and neighborhoods of the city in an organizational campaign, and the number of councils reached approximately 400 councils, in addition to receiving hundreds of displaced people fleeing from outside the region, and contributing to their return to their villages, and providing services to them.

At the beginning of 2017 and after about a year of liberating the city from ISIS mercenaries, and within the framework of expanding the work of the council and involving representatives of all components, the components of Circassians, Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen announced the establishment of autonomous administration with its legislative, executive and judicial councils.

The administration included the co-presidency at the time, namely Zainab Qanbar and Ibrahim al-Qaftan, in addition to committees affiliated with the bodies in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, namely "Health, Women, Economy, Youth and Sports, Defense, Culture and Art, Social Affairs and Labor, Local Administration and Municipalities, Education, Interior, Foreign Affairs, Martyrs' Families and Finance."

After the announcement of the social contract and its ratification by the Democratic Peoples' Council on December 12, 2023, Manbij was transformed into a canton within the North and East Syria region, which consists of seven cantons, and thus work began on organizing institutions and committees in Manbij according to the new contract.

Manbij and Geopolitical Transformations

On July 15, 2017, the Manbij Military Council announced the withdrawal of the last batch of military advisors from the People's Protection Units (YPG), so that the Military Council would administer the entire city of Manbij and the countryside, with the presence of Global Coalition bases on the frontlines with the Turkish occupation.

US President Donald Trump's announcement to withdraw his forces from Syria sparked angry popular reactions, coinciding with the entanglement of the crisis in the country, the entry of international and regional players, and the threat to safe areas in northern and eastern Syria, including Turkey and the Damascus government.

On October 15, 2019, the Global Coalition officially announced the withdrawal of its forces from the city of Manbij and heading towards the eastern regions of Syria.

A day after the withdrawal of coalition forces, Russian forces and units of the Damascus government forces entered the contact lines with the Turkish occupation, following a call from the Syrian Democratic Forces to stand up to Turkish ambitions.

Manbij and Turkish Threats

Turkish threats to invade Manbij and annex it to the occupied areas continue as part of Turkish efforts to divide the northern part of Syria under the pretext of a "safe zone", which is rejected by the components residing in the city and countryside through daily demonstrations and activities calling on the Turkish occupation to leave Syria. Amidst the silence of the Damascus government.

Attacks against villages on the front lines have become a daily scene, through which the Turkish occupation state works to create a state of instability in the region and displace the largest possible number of residents in the province, which the Turkish state has not achieved for 8 years.

T/ Satt.

ANHA