Date: Mar 28, 2019 Source: The Daily Star Daesh kills U.S.-backed Syria fighters BEIRUT/ANKARA: Daesh (ISIS) Tuesday claimed an attack on U.S.-backed forces in the northern Syrian city of Manbij, days after their “caliphate” was declared defeated. Manbij is a former Daesh stronghold that is now ruled by a military council affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led alliance that declared victory over Daesh in its last redoubt in eastern Syria Saturday. At around midnight Monday, gunmen opened fire at fighters manning a checkpoint at the entrance to the city, killing seven, the council said. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement published on its social media channels Tuesday. A spokesman for the Manbij Military Council, Sherfan Darwish, said it could be a revenge attack. “After the victory over Daesh, we have entered the phase of sleeper cells,” Darwish told AFP. “These sleeper cells are being activated and carrying out attacks but we will foil their operations.” The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was “the first attack of its kind” since the SDF declared the defeat of the “caliphate” last week. Observatory head Rami Abdel-Rahman said it was also the bloodiest attack in Manbij since Jan. 16, when 19 people - including four U.S. service personnel - were killed in a suicide bombing claimed by the militant group. Daesh has vowed to carry out revenge attacks against the SDF over the six-month offensive against it that culminated in the militants’ defeat in the village of Baghouz, close to the Iraqi border, Saturday. The Britain-based Observatory said hundreds of SDF members have been killed in attacks believed to have been carried out by Daesh sleeper cells since August. Manbij is also a major point of contention between the Kurds, who lead the Syrian Democratic Forces, and neighboring Turkey, which is deeply opposed to their autonomous administration in northeastern and parts of northern Syria. The city is one of the few areas west of the Euphrates that remains under Kurdish influence after Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies overran the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in March last year. Ankara has threatened to launch a new offensive to dislodge the People’s Protection Units (YPG) - the Kurdish force that forms the backbone of the SDF - from the entire length of the border. Turkish and Russian forces Tuesday carried out the first “independent and coordinated” patrols in the mainly Kurdish-controlled northern Syrian region of Tal Rifaat, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said. Tal Rifaat is located some 20 kilometers east of Afrin. Ankara considers the YPG to be a terrorist organization. Turkey shelled YPG militia positions in the Tal Rifaat region earlier this year, saying it was responding to YPG harassment fire. “In order to establish cease-fire and stability, prevent attacks on our forces in the Tal Rifaat region ... Turkish and Russian Armed Forces carried out the first independent, coordinated patrols,” the ministry said in a statement Tuesday. Turkey’s military has so far launched two cross-border operations into Syria against the YPG militia, which Ankara considers an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. Turkey vowed in December to begin an offensive in the east of the Euphrates River but has remained quiet after the United States ordered the withdrawal of American troops from Syria. Earlier this month, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Turkish and Russian patrols would begin in Syria’s northwestern militant-controlled Idlib region as part of an agreement between Moscow and Ankara signed last year. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will go to Russia on April 8, the Turkish presidency said Saturday, for meetings likely to focus on Syria.