IS flees Manbij, abducts 2,000 as 'human shield'

Islamic State group fighters seized around 2,000 civilians to use as "human shields" Friday as they fled their stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria, US-backed forces and a monitor said.

The abductions came as Russian and Syrian jets pounded rebel positions in second city Aleppo killing 15 civilians, an AFP correspondent and the Syrian Observatory for Human Right monitor said. The raids hit several neighbourhoods as residents filled the streets to buy fresh produce brought into rebel-held areas which had been under government siege, an AFP correspondent said.

Also yesterday, Turkey vowed to cooperate with Syrian ally Iran to try to resolve the conflict in which Ankara backs rebels battling the government of President Bashar al-Assad. At a joint news conference in Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the two neighbouring nations have agreed to "keep closer contact" on the issue of the "territorial integrity of Syria".

The Arab-Kurdish alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expelled most of the IS fighters from Manbij last week, but dozens continued to put up a tough resistance.

Yesterday, they withdrew from a district in northern Manbij heading for the IS-held town of Jarabalus along the border with Turkey, taking the captives with them. Women and children were among those taken.

It said IS confiscated residents' cars, forced civilians into them and then headed for Jarabulus.

The jihadists, who have suffered a string of losses in Syria and Iraq, have often staged mass kidnappings in the two countries when they come under pressure to relinquish territory they hold.

Manbij was a key transit point along IS's supply route from the Turkish border to Raqa, the de facto capital of its self-styled Islamic "caliphate".

Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 and has since killed more than 290,000 people and drawn in world powers on all sides of the war.