Alwaght- ISIS terrorist group has reportedly abducted more that 200 of civilians on Tuesday after storming into a number of Kurdish villages near al-Bab city in the northern countryside of Aleppo, northern Syria.
ISIS terrorists broke into the villages of Shawa, Qaarkalbin, Tel Jarja, Sosinbat, Numan and Qabasin, and kidnapped more than 210 Kurdish civilians, Iraqi-based ARA News cited eyewitnesses as saying.
“They drove young people out of their homes, including men and women, and they moved them away by large trucks. We don’t know where they’ve been taken,” an eyewitness in Tel Jarja told the Iraqi website. “ISIS fighters left behind the elderly and children, they only took the young and healthy boys and girls.”
“Most of the kidnapped were young men and some of them were women. We are concerned about their destiny, as the group may use them as human shields in its battles with Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),” Kurdish lawyer Omran Mansour told ARA News in Aleppo.
The SDF is an anti-ISIS alliance of Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Turkmen, and mostly Kurdish fighters belonging to the People's Protection Units, also known as the YPG.
The ISIS has been involved in heavy fighting with the SDF coalition in the northern countryside of Aleppo for over a year, and most recently in Manbij, where SDF has repeatedly raised concerns about civilians used by ISIS as human shields during the battles.
US military officials claim the offensive in Manbij is supported by American special operations forces, who are acting as advisers and staying some distance back from the frontline.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been stuck in the city after the US-backed SDF troops laid siege to it on Friday following a major offensive on May 31.
“ISIS extremists are now carrying out a revenge campaign against Kurds and other communities in northern Aleppo, accusing them of supporting the SDF,” Mansour said.
The Kurdish lawyer added that the kidnapped young men could be forced into the fighting against the SDF, while the women might be taken as sex slaves.
“We have seen this scenario before, especially with the Yezidi community at the hands of ISIS terrorists, and we would apparently see this over and over again as long as those terrorists exist in this region,” Mansour added.
According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, those remaining in the city are in constant danger of US-led coalition airstrikes and are also facing food and water shortages as the SDF forces have blocked all roads to and from Manbij.
Based on figures released by the observatory, which supposedly relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria, since the beginning of the offensive, 223 ISIS terrorists and 28 SDF troops have been killed. Forty-one civilians have been also killed by coalition airstrikes.
